Monkey Business (1931 film)

On board an ocean liner, four stowaways hide in barrels in the ship's cargo hold. After singing "Sweet Adeline", they are discovered. The naval officers spend the rest of the voyage chasing and attempting to arrest the stowaways. Chico and Harpo disrupt a chess game and confiscate the board, taking it into the stateroom of racketeer Big Joe Helton and his daughter Mary, during a confrontation with rival gangster Alky Briggs. After they scare off Briggs, Big Joe hires Chico and Harpo to be his bodyguards. Groucho dances and romances with Briggs' wife, Lucille, until he is caught and threatened by Briggs. Groucho's audacity convinces Briggs to hire him and Zeppo. Briggs gives them loaded guns, which they immediately ditch in a bucket of water. Groucho offers his services to Big Joe, who says he will think it over.

As the ocean liner is about to dock in the United States, the stowaways realize that to get off the boat, they must steal passports and fool customs officials. Zeppo steals the passport of movie star Maurice Chevalier, and demonstrates his ability to mimic Chevalier's singing. The four butt in line at customs and Zeppo impersonates Chevalier. He is unsuccessful, however, and passes the passport to Chico, Groucho and Harpo, who each attempt unconvincing portrayals of Chevalier singing the same song, with Harpo resorting to a phonograph strapped on his back with an actual record of Chevalier singing. The four escape the authorities after hiding under a covered load of baggage.

Big Joe and his daughter, whom Zeppo met and romanced on board, host a party at which Groucho makes announcements, Chico plays piano and Harpo plays harp. Briggs' men kidnap Big Joe's daughter and take her to an old barn. The former stowaways follow and a fight ensues. The daughter is rescued, and Groucho attempts to find a needle in a haystack.

Except in the credits and in the screenplay, the Marx Brothers' characters have no names in this film. They are referred to simply as "the stowaways".

Writers S. J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone were excited to be working with the Marx Brothers. However, producer Herman J. Mankiewicz advised them to lower their expectations. He called the brothers "mercurial, devious, and ungrateful ... I hate to depress you, but you'll rue the day you ever took the assignment. This is an ordeal by fire, make sure you wear asbestos pants." Of the original script delivered by Perelman and Johnstone, Groucho said, "It stinks." He considered Perelman too intellectual to write for the Marx Brothers manic comic style. The final script was the result of five months of work by the brothers, gag writers, director Norman Z. MacLeod and Mankiewicz.[5] MacLeod later said that up to 12 writers worked on the film, and that Eddie Cantor contributed when he visited the set during shooting.[1]

Typical for many Marx Brothers films, production censors demanded changes in some lines with sexual innuendo.[6] Monkey Business was banned in Ireland because censors feared it would encourage anarchic tendencies.[5][7][8] In Ireland, the film was passed on January 8, 1932, with '16 unspecified cuts to script', including characters falling over each other in a dance scene.[9][10]

This is the first Marx Brothers film not to feature Margaret Dumont: this time their female foil is comedian Thelma Todd, who would also star in the Marx Brothers' next film, Horse Feathers. In December 1935, Todd was found dead in her car, inside her garage apparently from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. A line of dialogue in Monkey Business seems to foreshadow Todd's death. Alone with Todd in her cabin, Groucho quips: "You're a woman who's been getting nothing but dirty breaks. Well, we can clean and tighten your brakes, but you'll have to stay in the garage all night."[11]

Early on in Monkey Business, the Brothers—playing stowaways concealed in barrels—harmonize unseen while performing the popular song "Sweet Adeline". It is a matter of debate whether Harpo joins in with the singing. (One of the ship's crew asserts to the captain that he knows there are four stowaways because he can hear them singing "Sweet Adeline".) If so, it would be one of only a few times Harpo used speech on screen, as opposed to other vocalizations such as whistling or sneezing. At least one other possible on-screen utterance occurs in the film A Day at the Races (1937), in which Groucho, Chico, and Harpo are heard singing "Down by the Old Mill Stream" in three-part harmony.

This was the first Marx film to be written specifically for film, and the first shot in Hollywood. Their first two films were filmed at Paramount Pictures' Astoria Studios in Queens, New York City.

The Marx Brothers' real life father (Sam "Frenchie" Marx) is briefly seen in a cameo appearance, sitting on top of luggage behind the Brothers on the pier as they wave to the First Mate upon alighting. Sam Marx was 72 at the time, and the appearance was his film debut. He was paid $12.50 each day for two days' work.[1]

Monkey Business was Norman MacLeod's solo directorial debut.[1]

Left to right: Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, and Groucho.

Monkey Business was a critical and box office success,[11] and is considered one of the Marx Brothers' best and funniest films.[13][5]

Contemporary reviews were positive. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times wrote, "Whether it is really as funny as 'Animal Crackers' is a matter of opinion. Suffice it to say that few persons will be able to go to the Rivoli and keep a straight face."[14] Variety's review began, "The usual Marx madhouse and plenty of laughs sprouting from a plot structure resembling one of those California bungalows which sprout up overnight."[3] Film Daily agreed that the plot was "flimsy", but also found the film "crammed all the way with laughs and there's never a dead spot."[15] John Mosher of The New Yorker thought the film was "the best this family has given us."[16]

The film was evidently based on two routines the Marx Brothers did during their early days in vaudeville (Home Again and Mr. Green's Reception), along with a story idea from one of Groucho's friends, Bert Granet, called The Seas Are Wet.[11][17] The passport scene is a reworking of a stage sketch in which the brothers burst into a theatrical agent's office auditioning an impersonation of a current big star. It appeared in their stage shows On the Mezzanine Floor and I'll Say She Is (1924). This skit was also done by the Marxes in the Paramount promotional film The House That Shadows Built (1931).

The concept of the Marx Brothers being stowaways on a ship would be repeated in an episode of their radio series Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel (1933) in the episode "The False Roderick", and would also be recycled in their MGM film A Night at the Opera (1935).[18] The essence of Groucho's joke, "Sure, I'm a doctor—where's the horse?" would serve as an integral plot element for their film A Day at the Races (1937). Also repeated in that later film would be the uproarious medical examination that Harpo and Chico give opera singer Madame Swempski (Cecil Cunningham).

• 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #73[19]

According to Turner Classic Movies' Robert Osborne, a sequel was planned for this film that would continue the gangster theme. During the development of that film, aviator Charles Lindbergh's son was kidnapped and killed by what were believed to be gangsters. The writers quickly shifted gears and instead based the next film, Horse Feathers, very loosely on the Marx Brothers' earlier stage show Fun in Hi Skule.[20][17]

• List of United States comedy films

Wikiquote has quotations related to Monkey Business (1931 film).

• Monkey Business at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Monkey Business at IMDb
• Monkey Business at the TCM Movie Database
• Monkey Business at AllMovie
• The Marx Brothers Council Podcast discussing "Monkey Business"
• Monkey Business is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive