MONKEY BUSINESS
US, 1952, 98 minutes, Colour.
Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Marlowe.
Directed by Howard Hawks.
Monkey Business is a screwball comedy of the 1950s – which means that it is eccentric without having the flair of the screwball comedies of the 1930s. With Cary Grant, comparisons may be made with Howard Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby, with Katharine Hepburn, which is one of the best of these comedies.
Cary Grant plays an absentminded professor, coming in during the screen credits and being told to go out again because it is not time. Ginger Rogers is his devoted wife. Charles Coburn is the boss of the company which experiments in formulas – especially for ageing processes. Marilyn Monroe, in an early role, is his secretary. (She has some good comic scenes and some verbal clashes with Ginger Rogers.) Hugh Marlowe is a lawyer, the other man…
The film has some clever dialogue, written by Ben Hecht (The Front Page and many other screenplays), Charles Lederer (screenplay for His Girl Friday and many others) and I.A.L. Diamond, frequent writer of Billy Wilder comedies like Some Like it Hot.
However, the action is more than a bit silly. Both Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers have opportunity to revert to being twenty-year-olds in fortysomething-year-olds’ form. So does Charles Coburn at the end of the film. However, some of the slapstick is hit and miss, it is curious to see Cary Grant acting in such a comic way. Ginger Rogers, however, has the chance to do some dancing, twenty years after her Fred Astaire films. (She had done something of this kind of thing in Billy Wilder’s The Major and the Minor.)
Howard Hawks directed a wide range of films from Scarface in the early 1930s to Only Angels Have Wings, on aviation in the 30s with Cary Grant. At this time he directed Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Land of the Pharaohs and was soon to make Rio Bravo.
A popular screwball comedy of the 1950s? Sense of humour? Slapstick? Impact now?
Black and white photography, the style of the times? The 1950s, cars and fashions? Laboratories? The feel of the period? The musical score?
The title, experimentation with the monkeys? The two monkeys, their being mixed up in examinations? The monkey putting the formula together, drinking it? Monkey high jinks?
The plausibility and implausibility of the plot? Doctor Fulton as absent-minded? His laboratories? The hopes of the company? His wanting a formula to prevent ageing? The formula, the monkey mixing the liquids, the effect on the adults?
Cary Grant as Doctor Fulton, appearance, glasses, coming in before the credits, the mix-up with going out and his going inside after locking the door? Staying at home? His preoccupation and thinking? The experiments, the monkeys? The formula? Its having an effect on him, buying the clothes, the car, driving recklessly with Miss Laurel? The skating, the flop dive? The reaction of Edwina? Her taking the formula, becoming childish, dancing, ousting Barnaby, lacking his glasses, going into the wrong room, in the laundry chute? Their both taking the formula, the paint fight, Barnaby and the kids, scalping Hank Entwhistle? Calming down? The cleaning out of the formula – and everything returning to normal? And his love for Edwina?
Edwina, dignified, patient with Barnaby? Taking the formula, her reaction, dancing, tantrums, flirting? Ringing Hank? The memories of Hank, her mother’s visit? Calming down, finding the baby, thinking it was Barnaby? The resolution?
Mr Oxley, Charles Coburn’s comedy style, bumbling, wanting the formula, observing everything, Miss Laurel? His taking the formula? Becoming childish?
Marilyn Monroe as Miss Laurel, her mixing up words, her showing her stockings to Barnaby, her work, going out with him in the car, skating, swimming? Flirting? The crash? The attack by Edwina?
Hank Entwhistle, serious, lawyer, in love with Edwina, wanting to help her divorce, being scalped?
The scientists – and the contrivance of the plot, for comedy, for slapstick?
