Marx Brothers of "The Big Store" the team announced they were retiring from the screen. Four years later, however, Chico persuaded his brothers to make two additional films, "A Night in Casablanca" (1946) and "Love Happy" (1949), to alleviate his severe gambling debts. Both pictures were released by United Artists. From the 1940s onward Chico and Harpo appeared separately and together in nightclubs and casinos. Chico fronted a big band, the Chico Marx Orchestra (with 17-year-old Mel Tormé as a vocalist). Groucho made several radio appearances during the 1940s and starred in "You Bet Your Life", which ran from 1947 to 1961
Marx Brothers regarded Leo McCarey, is the highest rated of the five Marx Brothers films on the American Film Institute's "100 years ... 100 Movies" list. It did not do as well financially as "Horse Feathers", but was the sixth-highest grosser of 1933. The film sparked a dispute between the Marxes and the village of Fredonia, New York. "Freedonia" was the name of a fictional country in the script, and the city fathers wrote to Paramount and asked the studio to remove all references to Freedonia because "it is hurting our town's image". Groucho fired back a sarcastic retort asking them to