MONKEY BUSINESS directed by Norman Z.McLeod (USA, 1931)
After two movies based on vaudeville shows, Monkey Business was the first Marx Brothers film written specially for the big screen. It’s included on the syllabus of the The Language of Hollywood Coursera MOOC to show how, with the coming of sound, many films of the 1930s were not dependent on innovative auteurs but relied on the ability of the players to generate the entertainment.
Effectively, this means that the director’s job is reduced to simply pointing the camera and relying on the timing of the performers.
The Marx Brothers had honed their comic skills on Broadway and knew exactly what audiences wanted, as is proven by the huge success of this movie.
Theirs is the essence of situation comedy with the specific situations here being a ship, a high-class party and a barn. Most of the action takes place on board an ocean liner where the four brothers are stowaways. Continue reading
