MONKEY BUSINESS

US, 1931, 77 minutes, Black-and-white.

Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zappo Marx, Rockliffe Fellowes, Harry Woods, Thelma Todd, Ruth Hall, Tom Kennedy.

Directed by Norman Z. McLeod.

Monkey Business is the third of the Marx Bros comedies at Paramount in the early 1930s. It was the first written for the screen and filmed in Hollywood (the earlier two at Paramount Studios in New York)

The setting is a transatlantic liner, the brothers stowing away in barrels, heard singing, exposed, then chases all around the ship throughout the film, tantalising the captain, usurping his authority, tormenting his assistant. The film gives the opportunity for the Marx Bros to establish their screen personas, developing them from their theatre performances, Groucho and his moustache, eyebrows, stooped walk, wisecracks, cigar, twisting the plot to his own advantage. Chico does some comedy but, finally, shows his versatility at the piano. Harpo, in the early films, chasing the women (almost, indeed, harassment), not talking, but finally getting the opportunity to attend of the film to play the harp. The Zeppo is the straight man, involved romantically with the daughter of a gangster on the ship.

There is a lot of comedy with the gangsters, Chico and Harpo hired as hitmen, Groucho twisting loyalties, and the femme fatale, wife of the gangster, Thelma Todd, who wants more out of life and has some innuendo sequences and lines with Groucho.

The film is well remembered but, audiences coming to this film in the light of the later films at MGM, it looks like a promo for their careers and is more than a bit silly!