Monkey Business
1931 Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Synopsis
Four stowaways get mixed up with gangsters while running riot on an ocean liner.
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Maybe it was the particular mood I was in this time around but I actually did enjoy this Marx Brothers film which is surprising given that I was very disappointed with two of their most famous films in "Duck Soup" and "Animal Crackers".
Unlike Animal Crackers which felt like it ran too long, this film is about a half hour shorter and thus less repetitious. The mayhem and anarchy that the Marx Brothers ensue on their fellow characters and themselves is much more entertaining here and flows well within their environment along the cruise ship. They move at a rapid pace and find themselves in one situation to the next and it really keeps the interest going in the viewers.…
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Although I have only seen so far two Marx Brothers films I really do feel a strong reaction to their madcap comedy. The way they can take a situation and completely undercut any semblance of normality and turn it into pure chaos along with taking the wind out of any figure of authority is a setup for comedy that I consistently find hilarious. They may be a volume business hurling one-liners, clever word play bits, visual gags and physical humor a mile a minute and letting the cards fall where they may, but the majority of it is laugh out loud funny or at the very least humorous. The funny in Monkey Business never slows down and the Marx Brothers…
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Not my fave Marx brothers film, I think because it doesn't quite have the anarchic, throw everything at the wall feel of some of their other movies. This quality makes all of their films uneven, but I found I just wasn't laughing as much as I did with Animal Crackers or Duck Soup. I think my hopes were maybe too high here, and it is certainly not bad, with some great gags and lines, but it did not hit me the way I wanted it to.
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The Marx brothers will never not be funny. I'm biding my time to watch all of their movies because it'll be too sad when I've seen them all.
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Second best. Along with Duck Soup, you form the duo of the greatest Marx Brothers movies.
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Even more wacky than most Marx Bros. features, this has Groucho on fine form.
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Film #43 of my June 100
Call me a sourpuss but I just didn't find this very funny outside of the occasional gag. Although I do have a tricky history with the comedy genre.
This was my first Marx Brothers film, and I'm aware it's not considered one of their best so I'll have to try out another.
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Incredibly silly and over the top, but so entertaining. The piano and harp numbers were some of my favorite bits, they fit well in the goofiness of the movie and show how talented these guys were.
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I'm sorry, I guess I just don't get The Marx Brothers.
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The Marx Brothers third picture and the first to be written for the screen was also their first to be filmed in Hollywood. Monkey Business sees all four brothers, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo as stowaways on board a ship bound for the U.S.
As with many of their movies the censors wanted changes to some of the lines that contained innuendo and in some countries the picture was banned as it was thought it would encourage anarchic tendencies.
Their usual foil, Margaret Dumont does not appear here as she was considered not sexy enough so Thelma Todd was brought in for this and their next film 'Horse Feathers'.
A success on release it is considered one their greatest pictures, it was based on at least two routines that they use to do in their early days in vaudeville; the passport scene is a reworking also of a stage sketch where the brothers impersonate a current big star. -
Comedy as a force of nature. Not all the gags land this time, but there are some treasured routines in there.
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Although I have only seen so far two Marx Brothers films I really do feel a strong reaction to their madcap comedy. The way they can take a situation and completely undercut any semblance of normality and turn it into pure chaos along with taking the wind out of any figure of authority is a setup for comedy that I consistently find hilarious. They may be a volume business hurling one-liners, clever word play bits, visual gags and physical humor a mile a minute and letting the cards fall where they may, but the majority of it is laugh out loud funny or at the very least humorous. The funny in Monkey Business never slows down and the Marx Brothers…
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Not my fave Marx brothers film, I think because it doesn't quite have the anarchic, throw everything at the wall feel of some of their other movies. This quality makes all of their films uneven, but I found I just wasn't laughing as much as I did with Animal Crackers or Duck Soup. I think my hopes were maybe too high here, and it is certainly not bad, with some great gags and lines, but it did not hit me the way I wanted it to.
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Since starting into The Marx Brothers, I have yet to enjoy one of their films as much as the first one, although I've only done two others and I have their real classics ahead of me (namely Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera). As with Animal Crackers before it, this doesn't quite have the snap of The Cocoanuts, even though both were perfectly fine and often amusing. Most entertaining is Groucho's attempt to romance Thelma Todd, wife of a gangster.
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Delirio anarquista puro. Harpo sin lugar a dudas es el ello de los hermanos Marx