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This Film On

• Internet Movie Database (IMDB)

Monkey Business

(1931)

77 min. Paramount. Director: Norman Z. McLeod. Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, The Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd.

The post-Code, pre-p.c. Marx Brothers comedy Monkey Business keeps plot at a minimum, anarchy at a maximum, which is a good place to be for the fearless foursome of 1930s screen comedy. In their first original screen adventure (after two adaptations of hit stage productions), Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo play unnamed stowaways on an ocean liner traversing the Atlantic. It's a full twenty minutes into the picture before there's any more plot than the boys running away from ship stewards and getting into general mischief, which shows a narrative chutzpah that's kind of amazing in and of itself.

The plot initiates when Groucho happens upon this film's crook and vamp, Alky Briggs (Harry Woods) and Lucille Briggs (Thelma Todd). Alky's in a gang war with racketeer "Big Joe" Helton (Rockliffe Fellows), and our boys wind up idly taking sides as bodyguards and henchmen. The film's second act plays out at a house party before a kidnapping leads to the climax in a barn. The Marx Brothers save the day, with Zeppo unironically doing the fisticuffs while Chico and Harpo comically knockabout and Groucho does play by play. In fact, Monkey Business wisely promotes the undervalued Zeppo to romantic lead (opposite Ruth Hall as Helton's daughter). While this doesn't afford Zeppo comic opportunities, his experienced charm makes the film's requisite romantic scenes less dull.

The party sequence affords opportunities for Chico's piano solo ("Pizzicato"/"When I Take My Sugar to Tea") and Harpo's harp solo ("I'm Daffy Over You," which Chico played in Animal Crackers), but this film's most memorable music scenes are the boys singing "Sweet Adeline" in four-part harmony from their hiding spot in the hold (barrels of kippered herring), pausing to bang out a tune while on the run, and the Maurice Chevalier sketch, in each of the four Marxes attempts to pass off the singer's stolen passport as his own by performing a snippet of "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" (a new spin on a sketch they performed on stage in the '20s).

This film's screen credit goes to S.J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone, with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman, all trusted writers for the Marxes. Groucho gets plenty of opportunities for verbal wit ("I wish you'd keep my hands to yourself") and physical comedy (lots of his loping, lurching walk and ridiculous dancing, including a bed-romping tango with Todd); he even does impressions—of Chevalier, a cowboy, and a cat. Harpo gets a centerpiece sequence delighting children by hijacking a Punch and Judy show, and he and Chico amusing pose as barbers (trimming "a little snoop" at a time from a customer's moustache). To paraphrase one running gag, if you want excitement, if you want to hot-cha-cha, getting into some Monkey Business is still a good way to go.

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