Monkey Business (1931 film)
| Monkey Business | |
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theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Norman Z. McLeod |
| Produced by | Herman J. Mankiewicz |
| Written by |
S. J. Perelman Will B. Johnstone |
| Starring |
Groucho Marx Harpo Marx Chico Marx Zeppo Marx Thelma Todd |
| Music by | John Leipold |
| Cinematography | Arthur L. Todd |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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79 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Monkey Business is a 1931 American Pre-Code comedy film. It is the third of the Marx Brothers' released movies, and the first with an original screenplay rather than an adaptation of one of their Broadway shows. The film also stars Thelma Todd. It is directed by Norman Z. McLeod with screenplay by S. J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone. Much of the story takes place in on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
On board a ship to America, four stowaways get involuntarily pressed into service as toughs for a pair of feuding gangsters while trying desperately to evade the ship's crew. Prior to this, the film has no real plot, just the brothers causing unending uproar. Except in the credits and in the screenplay, the Brothers' characters have no names in this film. They are referred to simply as "the stowaways". After arriving stateside, one of the gangsters kidnaps the other's daughter, leaving it up to the brothers to save the day.
Typical for many Marx Brothers films, production censors demanded changes in some lines with sexual innuendo.Monkey Business was banned in some countries because censors feared it would encourage anarchic tendencies.
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. A few years after the release of Horse Feathers, Todd died in unexplained circumstances. 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." In 1935, Todd died in her car inside a garage, apparently from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.
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.
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