Directed by: Norman McLeod (Horse Feathers)
Starring: The Four Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd, Ruth Hall, Rockliffe Fellows
I once participated in a Marx Brothers “survivor game” on a message board (you can’t say that I waste my time) and was pleasantly surprised to see Monkey Business come in in third place. That seems about right to me, but when you’re dealing with the five pictures the boys made at Paramount, it’s kind of a case of splitting superlatives. Still, there’s something a little special about this film in that it might well be the most wholly anarchic they ever made. (It was, in fact, banned in Ireland because authorities feared it would inspire anarchy.) While most of their films had some attempt at a plot, this one really has little more than a situation. The Marxes aren’t even given character names and are simply billed as playing themselves.They’re stowaways on a ship — living in barrels meant for kippered herring. They aren’t very good stowaways either, since they draw attention to themselves by singing “Sweet Adeline” (what else would four guys in barrels do?) and send insulting notes to the captain. But then that’s the whole point of the film — they just do what they damn well please, and so does the movie. There’s a minimal story when they get mixed up with rival bootleggers, but it hardly matters because the Marxes take none of it seriously. No, this is a movie where they stop in the middle of a chase to impersonate (very badly) the ship’s orchestra (and the passengers applaud their efforts).This is a movie where all four Marx Brothers try to get off the ship by using Maurice Chevalier’s passport (Zeppo stole it) — each “proving” his authenticity by singing “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me.” (The silent Harpo has the best approach.) All this, of course, is the genius of the thing — that and the fact that the world at large absurdly takes what they’re doing seriously. Monkey Business was the first of their films written directly for the screen and the first to be made in Hollywood rather than on the relatively cramped Long Island soundstages, and it takes advantage of both changes. The film feels more free than its two predecessors and makes no concessions to the conventions of having romantic leads. It’s all Marx Brothers all the time. And you can’t get much better than that.
The Asheville Film Society will screen Monkey Business Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. in the Cinema Lounge of The Carolina Asheville and will be hosted by Xpress movie critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther.
In Brief: In what is probably their most anarchic film, the Four Marx Brothers became stowaways on a ship, get mixed up with rival bootleggers, impersonate Maurice Chevalier and generally create mayhem wherever they go — seemingly because they want to and they can. A perfect Marx Brothers experience without a pause for anything as plebian as a plot.
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The Four Marx Brothers Karl, Richard, Bernard and Carlo? |
 Nov 06, 2012 at 2:28 PM |
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No. |
Nov 06, 2012 |
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I’ve always liked this Marx Brothers film the best. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen it over the years. |
 Nov 07, 2012 at 2:39 PM |
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I doubt I could count the number of times I’ve seen any of the first five Marx films. |
Nov 07, 2012 |
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Yes, all of those early films were classics. They stand the test of time. |
Nov 08, 2012 at 4:39 AM |
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I think to a degree the first seven films do. I don’t like A Night at the Opera or A Day at the Races nearly as much as the Paramount films that came before them, but they do have their points. I’m also a little nostalgic about them because the former was the bootleg print I ever owned (and my friends and I ran it nightly for quite some time) and the latter my father took me to, which introduced me to the hitherto unknown (to me) world of movies being shown at colleges. |
Nov 08, 2012 |
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I can only vaguely recall those two movies, it’s been so long ago since I’ve seen them (25 or more years). I think there is (or was) a Marx Bros. DVD box set that had all of these films. I should check into that. |
Nov 09, 2012 at 3:29 PM |
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I can only vaguely recall those two movies, it’s been so long ago since I’ve seen them (25 or more years). I think there is (or was) a Marx Bros. DVD box set that had all of these films. I should check into that. |
Nov 09, 2012 at 3:31 PM |
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Man those double postings are irritating. |
Nov 09, 2012 at 3:31 PM |
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I can only vaguely recall those two movies, it’s been so long ago since I’ve seen them (25 or more years). I think there is (or was) a Marx Bros. DVD box set that had all of these films. I should check into that Seems to still be around—about $30 on Amazon. Just remember that the later films are…uneven. |
Nov 10, 2012 |
