Animal Crackers

(1930) director Victor Heerman
viewed: 12/31/10

To usher in the new year, Turner Classic Movies ran a series of Marx Brothers films, starting with Animal Crackers.  I recognized an opportunity to catch up on these films, which have been in my queue for some years, and a good way to chill out on New Year’s Eve.  It had been a pretty long time since I’d last seen them.

Of all of the Marx Brothers’ films, Animal Crackers is perhaps the one with which I am most familiar.  It was their second feature film, adapted from a theatrical show which ran on Broadway.   As a result, it’s a big stilted in its direction, features many theatrical motifs, as well as some musical numbers.  But really, it’s got some of the funniest lines, sequences, and madness that the brothers ever caught on celluloid.

It’s doubtless that Groucho, Chico, and Harpo carved the mold for much of American short feature comedy animation.  The manic, surreal humor, verbal and physical echoes thoroughly through Bugs Bunny and many many more.  As well as who knows how many other things.

Set around a society party and the theft/replacement of a famous, expensive painting, the film is a series of scenes, gags, jokes, asides, and moments, with the main plot taking a good-natured back-seat to the antics and chaos that the three bring to the world.  Of course, Zeppo is there too, but being more the straight man with no significant jokes, he is largely superfluous compared to his outlandish brothers.

The film is a little clunky for sure, but it’s funny as hell.  Groucho’s rapid-fire double-talking one liners, puns, and double entendres are enough to spin your head.  Chico is right there with him getting in a lot of great/bad jokes too.  And Harpo is hilarious in his silent physical humor, racing lustily after every woman he sets eyes on.  The film is a pre-code film, though the Hays Hollywood Code was in effect and did trim certain elements from the film.  But it’s got a lot more suggestive humor than would be seen in later films after the Code was more heavily enforced.

For my money, it’s the funniest of the Marx Brothers’ films, though Duck Soup is often given that ranking.  This was the first of four films that I sat through in succession (they actually showed six).  But even I have my limits.