This film is the second adaptation of a Marx Brothers Broadway hit, and the last film that they did in New York before coming to Hollywood in 1931. It's less stage-bound than their first movie THE COCONUTS, primarily because they jettison most of the musical numbers of the play in favor of Marxian comedy.
In this play, the Brothers are weekend house-guests of Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) and they become entangled in a convoluted triple theft of a famous painting and two copies of same that is being displayed at Rittenhouse Mansion.
Groucho has his signature role as Captain Jeffrey (Geoffrey) T. Spaulding, an extremely phoney African explorer whose introductory song (Hurray for Captain Spaulding!) became Groucho's personal theme. He's at his wise-cracking peak, with Kaufman and Ryskind's jabs at experimental theater and artistic pretentiousness giving him plenty of scope for sharp comments. At one point, Groucho stops the action to repeatedly deliver stream-of-consciousness monologues a la Eugene O'Neal's play STRANGE INTERLUDE. Chico and Harpo are their usual excellent selves. They have plenty of script opportunities to cut up, most particularly in a very violent game of bridge!
The supporting players are acceptable. Robert Grieg is stiff and stagy as the hypocritical butler Hives. Margaret Irving is good as the snotty villainess Mrs. Whitehead. Lillian Roth is overly emphatic and hammy as the heart interest, Arabella Whitehead, already suffering from the first effects of the alcoholism that would doom her career. Hal Thompson is bland as romantic juvenile John Parker, while Louis Sorin rounds out the cast admirably as phony millionaire Roscoe W. Chandler, a.k.a. Abie the Fishman.
Another film the Marx Brothers did around this time was discovered and preserved by French film historian Henri Langlois. Entitled THE MARX BROTHERS SPECIAL, it is a five-minute promotional film that they did as a trailer for MONKEY BUSINESS. It contains no footage of that film. Instead, it is the only filmed record of one of their vaudeville routines. The Brothers all storm into an agent's office to force him to listen to their Maurice Chevalier (originally the stuttering comic Joe Frisco) imitation, using rhyming couplets and physical mayhem to great effect. This is the only surviving depiction of the Marx Brothers vaudeville career, and it is a must for all fans of the Brothers.
The short is available on the TEENAGE FLOOR SWEEPINGS tape from www.lsvideo.com, in the Floor Sweepings section for $9.95.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.