Animal Crackers (1930)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Animal Crackers (1930) – V. Heerman

The Marx Brothers tore into my living room tonight.  However, at first, I wasn’t so sure about it – their film seemed rather too scripted.  But then, as I loosened up (and the movie did too), I fell into its rhythm.  I never quite guffawed, but I appreciated the chaos and the well-timed reaction shots of Margaret Dumont.  Perhaps the jokes were just too familiar for laughing out loud and they always do fly by fast: elephant in my pajamas and so on.  Groucho is Captain Spalding, recently returned from Africa, and Dumont is hosting a party in his honor.  At said party, a famous painting is to be unveiled – but then it is replaced with a copy and another copy and then all three paintings are stolen (by Harpo, of course).  Except when it’s Chico -- who also plays the piano … wittily.  The censors apparently struck out some jokes but not the Marx spirit which is subversive enough to come through anyway. The result is not quite up there with Duck Soup but it still makes you want to take everything less seriously.