Monkey Business (1931)

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What’s the Story?

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.