Monkey Business (1931) (NR)

Marx Bros. classic is zany slapstick done right.

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Movie details

Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Directed By: Norman McLeod
Cast: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx
Running Time: 77 minutes
Release Date: 09/19/1931
Video/DVD Release Date: 06/24/1998
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: NR

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that this is not to be confused with another comedy from Hollywood's black-and-white era, the 1951 Monkey Business with Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Marilyn Monroe. That's funny too (and has a real monkey!), but TV-schedule guides sometimes get the two confused, and -- for kids especially -- Marilyn is no substitute for Groucho. Like most Marx Bros. outings, this is all about the silliness and mature content is at a minimum: At one point Groucho tries to cultivate an affair with a married woman, and there's a slapsticky fistfight at the movie's climax. Some of the jokes deal with topics and people -- especially French crooner Maurice Chevalier -- better known in the 1930s than now.

Families can talk about the appeal of the Marx Brothers. Which Marx is the funniest? How are their approaches to comedy different? How do they stack up next to the Three Stooges? Laurel and Hardy? Or Abbott and Costello, among other favorites of old-school funnymen? How about kid comedy favorites of today?

Message
Violence
Sex
Language

Message

Social Behavior:

The Marx Bros.' shtick is to bring chaos into a polite, high-class social environment -- first a cruise ship, then a party. Zeppo, though, gets to act heroic by rescuing a girl at the end.

Consumerism:

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Groucho smokes his famous cigar. Also social drinking.

Violence

Climax is a fistfight between Zeppo and various gangsters and henchmen -- more slapstick than anything else.

Sex

Mild innuendo from Groucho. Young women are chased around by Harpo, but his attitude is so childlike you get the feeling he wouldn't know what to do if he ever caught one.

Language

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by Charles Cassady, Jr.

The filmmakers didn't even both assigning character names to Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo this time. They're just "the stowaways," four brazen, bizarre freeloaders, introduced hiding in barrels on board a luxury cruise ship. While hiding from the angry captain and crew, they get in the midst of some kind of feud between a shady businessman and a mob boss. Zeppo (mostly the straight man/action hero) romances the businessman's daughter, while the remaining Marxes hire themselves out as bodyguards to both sides. Groucho, in a great bit of doubletalk, offers to be both the mobster's bodyguard and attacker. Any other way, he argues, logically, is 50 per cent waste. Once the ship arrives, the comics sneak off, and later wrap things up with a confrontation at a costume party and debutante ball.

Is it any good?

Nearly as loose-plotted as you could get, MONKEY BUSINESS is a rambunctious outing for the Marx Brothers in their prime. It was the first Marx Brothers comedy to be written directly for the screen -- not an adapted stage show like Animal Crackers -- that looks like it could have been shot in one long take through a security camera. This is fluid and fun, with some bits that could only have worked due to cinematography and editing (the mute Harpo "singing" like Maurice Chevalier thanks to a full-sized record player secretly strapped to his back), even if the storyline is nothing but a weak bridge to get from one Marx bit to another.

This is zany stuff, with only a few slow spots during the requisite musical numbers (a chronic ailment in Marx movies). Monkey Business and its follow-up Horse Feathers are probably the most a lot of young viewers will get to see of Thelma Todd, a sexy and funny comedic actress (the "vamping Venus") of the 1930s, who is seemingly able to hold her own against Groucho -- not an easy feat -- in her role as the gangster's restless wife. Todd died mysteriously at age 29, in what may have been suicide or a mob-connected murder, still one of Hollywood's most tantalizing unsolved mysteries.