STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH - Animal Crackers

ANIMAL CRACKERS

A Strange Musical Interlude

(1930)
With Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Louis Sorin, Lillian Roth, Margaret Irving, Robert Greig
Directed by Victor Heerman
Black and White
Reviewed by JL and JB

The Marx Brothers' second film is an example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. The film still suffers a bit from the technical limitations of early talkies and it has an unbearably plodding final 20 minutes, but ANIMAL CRACKERS nevertheless overflows with classic and hilarious scenes. The brothers (save for Harpo) seemed a bit tentative in their first screen outing (THE COCOANUTS) the year before, but here they fully live up to their legend as the masters of comic anarchy. Groucho delivers what may be his best screen performance, with his character of Captain Spaulding affording him the widest range for his comic gifts. Harpo is at his most manic, nothing but pure instinct and impulse, and Chico proves that obtuse belligerence can be charming. Even Zeppo gets a few laughs. ½ - JL

Director Victor Heerman must have taken a long, hard look at THE COCOANUTS (1929) before tackling the task of directing the Marx Brothers second picture, ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930), because he managed to avoid almost every mistake that Robert Florey and Joseph Santley made on the first film. Florey and Santley wanted to make a faithful adaptation of a Broadway musical comedy, and to that extent they succeeded. Victor Herman, on the other hand, decided that what audiences wanted to see in a Marx Brothers picture was The Marx Brothers, and so that is what he gave them. He wisely cut out all of the music except the indispensable "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" and one love song. The few plot scenes he kept in, to move the story along, are brief, and usually have one or two Marx Brothers popping in at the end.

ANIMAL CRACKERS may not be the faithful adaptation of a Broadway hit that THE COCOANUTS was, but in allowing the Marx Brothers to dominate the proceedings this time around, he made a film that stands up much better and is not simply a humorous curio of days gone by but a vital, if somewhat static and stage bound, classic.

Once again written by George Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, ANIMAL CRACKERS established a great Marx Brothers tradition - the buildup to Groucho's entrance, and the subsequent discovery, by the audience if not by his co-stars, that he is a complete fraud. Here, as Captain Spaulding, African Explorer, he arrives in a sedan chair carried by four natives, and immediately argues about the fare. "From Africa to here, a dollar eighty-five? I told you not to go through Australia, you know it's all ripped up!" Later, during his lecture about his days in Africa, he unleashes a deathless joke: "One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." He makes no pretense at being anything but a fraud and a liar, and his rich and clueless host (the indomitable Margaret Dumont) cannot see through him, or his greasepaint mustache. Much of Groucho's charm (if you can call it that) is that, at his best, he lays his fraudulence on the table for everyone to see, and people are so shocked at being fooled, they simply refuse to accept it.

Harpo and Chico contribute some great scenes, including one in which they play bridge with Dumont and Margaret Irving. Chico has much of the same qualities as Groucho. "How do you want to play? Honest?", he asks Dumont before the game begins. In another scene, when Mrs. Rittenhouse's daughter convinces Chico that a sneaky favor she wants him to do is not really stealing, he leaves in a huff. He'll only do a favor it means breaking the law.

Even the usually overlooked Zeppo has one great scene in ANIMAL CRACKERS. As Groucho dictates a letter to him, Zeppo asks him absurd questions. "How do you spell 'semi-colon?". Of course, Groucho has an answer - "Make it a comma." One of Zeppo's true shining moments comes when Groucho asks him to read the letter back. "You said a lot of things here that I didn't think were important," he says to a stunned Groucho, "so I just omitted them."

ANIMAL CRACKERS is a collection of hilarious scenes that runs out of steam about fifteen minutes before the movie ends. Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby were the masters of the catchy ditty, but "Why Am I So Romantic?", this movie's catchy ditty, shows up near the end of the film, and with Harpo immediately reprising it on his harp, the song grinds the proceedings to a complete stop, and it never really recovers. However, that flaw aside, ANIMAL CRACKERS remains one of the Marx Brothers funniest films. - JB

(Review adapted from a previously published article - JB)

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PERSISTENT TIGERS AND LEFT-HANDED MOTHS

ANIMAL CRACKERS opened at the Forty-Fourth Street Theater in NYC on October 23rd, 1928. It was the third and last Broadway show the Marx Brothers starred in, following I'LL SAY SHE IS (never filmed) and THE COCOANUTS.

The movie version of ANIMAL CRACKERS was filmed at Paramount's studios in Astoria, Long Island, New York. All subsequent Marx Brothers films were produced in Hollywood.

Robert Greig, who plays Hives the Butler, would also appear in the Brothers' HORSE FEATHERS as a biology professor, and was later a standing member of director Preston Sturges' stock company.

The Bert Kalmar - Harry Ruby song "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" became Groucho's theme song and was used in his TV quiz show You Bet Your Life.