Animal Crackers (1930)

Starring: The Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo)
Grade: Classic

In the 1930s alone, The Marx Brothers gave us this film, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Room Service, and At the Circus. Are you kidding me? Can you imagine being that consistently funny for an entire decade? That is absolutely legendary.

Summary

The wealthy Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) is holding a big party at her mansion in honor of Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho), an explorer who has just come back from Africa. Going along with the festivities, Rittenhouse has also invited rich art collector Roscoe W. Chandler (Louis Sorin). This is so he can present to everyone a famous Beaugard painting that is worth $100,000. After Chandler shows up with the painting, he flirts with Mrs. Rittenhouse until they are interrupted by her daughter Arabella (Lillian Roth) who is looking for her boyfriend John Parker (Hal Thompson). The whole party stops after it is announced Spaulding has arrived. His secretary Horatio Jamison (Zeppo) introduces him. Spaulding arrives but insists he has to go, though he decides to stay after a back-and-forth song and dance number that convinces him (“Hello, I Must Be Going”). Right after this, Signor Emanuel Ravelli (Chico) arrives at the party. He has been hired to be the musician for the party. After Spaulding and Ravelli have a conversation about Ravelli’s rates, his partner “The Professor” (Harpo) shows up.

Things quickly go awry after the Professor messes around a little too much, grabs a gun from Spaulding’s gun rack, and starts firing into the crowd for no reason. Because of this, everyone runs away.

Two guests from the party, Grace (Kathryn Reece) and Mrs. Whitehead (Margaret Irving), devise a scheme to steal the Beaugard painting. Grace recreated the same painting a year ago in art school, so she gets the idea to switch out the two paintings when Chandler presents it to the crowd, making a fool of everyone. Mrs. Whitehead enlists butler Hives (Robert Greig) to help them make the switch. Later, Arabella and John talk about how they can’t get married because of their lack of money. To the surprise of no one, John’s career as an artist hasn’t necessarily taken off.

As they talk, Spaulding tries to convince Mrs. Rittenhouse and Mrs. Whitehead to join him in a three-way marriage.

Back in the other room, Arabella comes up with a wild idea to help her and John: They can steal the Beaugard and replace it for the copy John made years ago. Then, when everyone marvels at the painting during Chandler’s exhibit, they can reveal to the crowd that John did it. This would impress everyone, and he can possibly get some job opportunities because of it, maybe even from Chandler himself. Somehow, Ravelli and the Professor recognize Chandler as a former fish peddler named Abie from Czechoslovakia, freaking him out. He pleads with them not to tell everyone about his past and after some arguing, Ravelli and the Professor annoy the hell out of him and rob him of some of his clothes, even his birthmark somehow. After getting shit from them, Chandler then gets the run-around from Captain Spaulding. Later, Ravelli is roped into Arabella’s plan as she enlists him to switch the paintings. Ravelli and the Professor are successful. Thankfully, a thunderstorm knocked the power out when Spaulding and Rittenhouse entered the room in the middle of it.

*Because I don’t want to ruin all of the gags in the film, I’ll just skip to when the plot kicks into high gear.*

Much later, everyone in the party is alerted by Chandler that someone stole the real Beaugard painting. This makes everyone a suspect, so Spaulding tries to help in finding out who is responsible.

My Thoughts:

Animal Crackers is yet another comedy classic brought to us by the Marx Brothers. There’s a reason these four have influenced so many comic actors and writers over the years. Even today, very few people are as quick-witted and naturally funny as these brothers. Animal Crackers is right up there among their best films, which is saying something considering how many of them we consider to be comedy classics.

Zeppo is even less of a focus than before, but you don’t really notice it because of the chaos that ensues. Chico and Harpo are again wickedly funny together. Some bits they do actually had me appreciating their creativity. How do they develop some of these bits? There’s a level of ingenuity here that you don’t see in comedy films today. We’ve come to expect the funny dialogue, but you have to appreciate some of the things they come up with other than the tricky conversation stuff. With Animal Crackers, this was the first time I started to really respect their grind in vaudeville and Broadway because you know how long it takes to develop these excellent gags and well-thought-out jokes. It’s pure dedication. Another big positive is that Groucho’s Captain Spaulding is arguably his best and most developed character. I could watch this man spew nonsense about his trips of exploration for days. There’s one scene where he talks about his adventures and every sentence becomes funnier than the next, with each line increasing in its ridiculousness.

This of course leads us to one of his most famous quips: “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know”.

Animal Crackers is so interestingly put together. As was the case for their earlier films, instead of these characters existing to progress the plot, it seems that Groucho, Chico, and Harpo are placed into this scenario to stall everything. Every time we try to go back to the main plot, the three go off on tangents, waste time with random bits, or annoy people through conversations (including with each other). Even Groucho almost loses it because of Chico’s lack of understanding. Yes, we’ve seen these scenarios happen time and time again in their movies, but it never gets old because the jokes are always fresh. It’s hilarious, and it works because of the style of the film. It’s pure comedic lawlessness, and the Marx Brothers excel at it. There are so many funny scenes worth noting too. My favorite is when Chico and Harpo play Bridge with Mrs. Rittenhouse and Mrs. Whitehead, as well as Groucho just fucking with Chandler, switching topics every other sentence in this rapid-fire conversation that leads absolutely nowhere. The only thing it gives us is this running gag of Spaulding constantly exchanging pleasantries with Chandler anytime he enters the room. I have no idea why it’s so funny, but when you got someone like Groucho delivering the lines, it just works, you know?

The film is based off of the Brothers’ Broadway play and the way the film is set up, it feels like one too. The acting of the supporting characters seems like it would feel a lot more at home on a stage rather than in a movie. Even Groucho does a couple of asides to the audience that would definitely garner a huge laugh if presented in a play format. It’s a little bit different and modern audiences may not appreciate it because of the wackiness of the plot, but people need to realize that the Marx Brothers just operated differently. Their style was on an entirely different playing field. Even in one lone setting, the Marx Brothers will find a way to make their movie as comedically eventful as possible. As such was the case with Animal Crackers, their first of many classics.

Believe me, I have no problem in trashing an old comedy film and saying it sucks. In fact, I revel in it. This is why when I rank a film like Animal Crackers a “Classic“, I mean it. It’s still a masterclass in comedy and a fun, wacky, anarchic Marx Brothers film worthy of your time. It’s filled with hilarious quotes, memorable scenes and music, and hysterical bits you won’t find anywhere else. Here’s to hoping people will continue to appreciate and understand the timelessness of their type of humor.