Animal Crackers
With The Marx Brothers now firmly entrenched in Hollywood filmmaking (although their films were being shot on soundstages in New York) after the success of their debut feature (The Cocoanuts), in 1930 they came along with their second film, one which was also based on a stage play which they had starred in on Broadway, both a good thing and a bad thing since that meant a need to incorporate a couple of song and dance numbers into the mix (notice the pained look on the faces of the background extras during these forced moments) but not as many as with their previous film since it was now known and acknowledged that The Brothers’ specialty were their various comedy bits which made use of their widespread strengths, with Groucho being the motormouth shit talker who could butter you up one minute and then badmouth you the next, Chico with his shady Italian caricature which depended greatly on his alleged inability to neither understand nor properly pronounce English (although at one point it is brought up directly to him that he might not really be Italian since in real life he was just as Jewish as his brothers), Harpo with his mute, bewigged maniac who better than anybody else embodied the physical mayhem that many associated with both The Brothers and with classic comedy in general who most likely would have been right at home in the silent comedy world alongside Chaplin and Keaton, and Zeppo who as usual was the blandest and the one given the least to do but whenever called upon could make for a fine straight man to any of his brothers (usually Groucho) and was also said to be able to do a great impersonation of any of his brothers as well (reportedly in the vaudeville days he would don Groucho’s greasepaint moustache and “go on” as him with nobody even knowing the difference). Here we also get some of the usual adornments of their films including Margaret Dumont as another older, rich matron who acts as a straightwoman to Groucho in her own right while he makes allusions to wanting to romance and marry her (usually for her money), a typical “romantic” couple consisting of an incredibly feminine male lead and the female role being filled by Lillian Roth, an early sound era star who was reportedly being “punished” for her bad behavior by the studio in being forced to work with The Brothers whom it was presumed would undermine her and give her a hard time all through filming. This time the singular setting is the home of a rich woman (Dumont) whose major social event is actually twofold: on one hand she is planning to unveil an extremely valuable painting by the original artist in order to show it off to everybody and on the second hand she is holding a return party for a famous “African explorer” who has just come home named Captain Spaulding (Groucho using a character name that would later be used by Sid Haig in House Of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects). Of course, Groucho’s big entrance (after a couple of awkward musical numbers) complete with his own “personal secretary” (Zeppo) introducing him belies the fact that 1) We can never be sure if this famous “African explorer” is really who he says he is since he is shown fainting at the sight of a caterpillar on his shoulder and 2) We can see once again that the Groucho character here has found a way to subversively embed himself into high society as ostensibly someone who is to be treated with respect but nonetheless acts as if nobody else in the room (except maybe Zeppo) is getting the joke that he is anything but a man of respect. And just as Groucho and Zeppo seem to be allied here, that usually also seems to be the case with Chico and Harpo who find their way into the mansion on the pretense of being the musical entertainment for the occasion with Chico showing off his (legit) piano skills and Harpo doing his thing on the harp (hence his name) but for the most part they just cause their usual havoc with Harpo spending nearly half his screen time randomly chasing around some unnamed blonde and Chico proving to be the only one with his patented clueless schtick to make Groucho want to walk out into traffic after attempting to have any kind of a conversation with him. As for the plot itself (what there is of it), the aforementioned painting (said to be worth $100,000 in 1930 money) is actually targeted by not one but two plots to steal it and replace it with a less valuable replica, one of which is by Roth and her sissy boyfriend in order to surprise people with his artistic skills when he did his replica version (with the intention of replacing the real one back afterwards) with the assistance of both Chico and Harpo (always the expert kleptomaniac) enlisted in order to do so. The second plot is by two high society sisters who are guests at the gala who recruit the butler to help replace the original with the sister’s own replica (which isn’t very good) so that they can actually sell off the valuable original for big money. As one might (or might not) expect, it turns out that ALL three versions of the painting go missing (although Harpo is later seen sleeping on a bench using one of the paintings as a blanket!) and even as the cops are called in, Groucho’s Spaulding suddenly lays claim to being a great detective who will solve the case even as Zeppo finally gets a chance to be a part of an extended onscreen bit when his “personal secretary” attempts to take a letter from Spaulding and they get into a back and forth with each other. Other major bits include Chico being paid with a check and asking Harpo to make sure that “it’s good” (Harpo drops it on the floor and it bounces back up), Harpo getting his hand on a gun and shooting everything in sight (mostly inanimate objects including a statue that comes to life and fires back) and Groucho officially breaking the fourth wall for the first time and talking to the audience (camera) with various “strange interludes” (where other characters are frozen in place while he addresses us) and at one point even reminding us that we shouldn’t have expected every single joke to actually be funny! There’s also a dialogue exchange between Groucho and Chico that (given its placement in the story) almost feels like the climax of the film itself even as the subject matter of the conversation is almost entirely complete nonsense and it continues to prove that Chico with his befuddled persona was second to none at driving Groucho around the bend. But really that’s the whole point of what these guys were about, not so much the corny song and dance numbers but rather the fact that these guys were arguably the greatest improvisational comics of all time and none were faster on the draw than Groucho himself, so respected for his verbal skills that occasionally he could actually get away with an off color and / or sexual innuendo tinged remark even in the relatively staid days of the old time Production Code which prohibited almost anything that could possibly push a film beyond G or even PG rated material by today’s standards. Chico most likely would be bombarded by the PC police today for constantly impersonating an Italian in what could be considered a stereotypical yet funny way. Harpo of course will always remain the most underrated, a walking cartoon character come to life who communicated solely through facial expressions and always honking on his bicycle horn which he kept situated on the front of his pants in an almost phallic manner. Zeppo so far at this point remained the cipher, certainly suave and handsome enough to do the romantic lead parts but at this time still relegated to being mostly an underused wingman to Groucho (although reportedly one scene where the lights go out and we hear Groucho’s voice in the darkness was actually Zeppo playing the Spaulding character). Many people forget that The Brothers’ nonconformist, anarchic brand of humor also extended to their own lifestyles as well (Groucho would try acid for the first time at age 77 in preparation for the hippie comedy Skidoo). All of them were talented, but when you consider that Groucho could actually do a scene on camera with another actor who screws up his line only to have Groucho cover it up with some improv AND make it funny for both the actor and himself AND have it be kept in the movie shows just what kind of talent we were dealing with here, a movie comedy team that for better or worse should probably be studied by everyone looking to get into the field of comedy and actually hoping to be GOOD at it…
7/10