The incomparable Marx Brothers brought their stage hit to the big screen in yet another transfer of one of their blockbuster Broadway shows to the Hollywood screen. It ended up providing Groucho not only his most famous line ever but also the song that would be the theme music for the rest of his life's exploits.
African hunter Captain Jeffrey Spaulding (Groucho) arrives at Rittenhouse manor where a gala party is being held in his honor and to reveal a famous painting owned by one Rosco W. Chandler. Along with his brothers and numerous others, Groucho finds himself soon after embroiled in the painting's disappearance. What the story lacks in intrigue is made up for with sheer lunacy on the part of the Marxes. Always the high strung, skirt chasing menace, Harpo excels as The Professor, but professor of what we never find out. His card game scene with the perennially underappreciated Chico, long suffering Marx foil Dumont as Mrs. Rittenhouse and Mrs. Whitehead is a classic.
The songs are more notable in this Marx entry than the others, primarily because of the two opening numbers that follow one after the other. First is Groucho's entrance music "Hooray For Captain Spaulding," which later became the theme song for his long running quiz show You Bet Your Life. Then, the Captain breaks into the ultimate in absurdism with the truly bizarre "Hello, I Must Be Going," a hilarious if bewildering tune.
Adapted from the stage play by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, Animal Crackers tends to feel more staged and clumsy than the other Marx transfers to the big screen. Admittedly, it was 1930, and production design still had a long way to go, but of their films, it had the worst. One can't help but notice and be distracted by this, despite the brothers best efforts to keep your attention on the madness at hand.
It is certainly one of best of their efforts as a whole. While it doesn't have the total, all out comic assault of Duck Soup or the grand production feel of A Night at the Opera, it does have some of the best routines of any of their films. Groucho's Africa monologue, highlighted by the famous "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas" line that is almost as well known as his mustache, is a fine example of this dialogue heavy comic gem.
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