Animal Crackers (1930)
One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got in my pyjamas, I don’t know.
Yes, this is the film where the timeless elephant in pyjamas joke comes from. It's a classic
Well, this is a crazy and chaotic piece of celluloid. It's also very funny. Animal Crackers is the second film outing of the Marx Brothers, the first being The Coconauts (1929). There's a plot somewhere here. Something about a wealthy society woman holding a gathering of her wealthy society friends in her wealthy society home. Part of the occasion is the unveiling of an expensive painting, two copies of said painting, and the paintings being switched around and eventually stolen. There's a largely pointless romance story running alongside events too, because 1930s films had to feature romance somewhere. But the plot plays second fiddle to the jokes and antics of the Marx Brothers.
Groucho plays Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding (the T stands for Edgar), a famous explorer who arrives at a high-society party with his very own theme tune ("Hooray for Captain Spaulding"). And straight away, he's throwing out a torrent of wisecracks to anybody in his vicinity. One of the key recipients of Groucho's zingers and insults is Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont), the owner of the aforementioned society home. She tries her best to stay composed, but it's quite entertaining watching her try not to crack. Early in the film, she states, "Captain Spaulding, you stand before me as one of the bravest men of all time!" And Groucho then stands in front of her. Yep, it's that kind of humour.
Groucho's jokes are a combination of rapid-fire wit ("Do you mind if I don't smoke?"), clever wordplay ("Mrs. Rittenhouse, ever since I met you, I've swept you off my feet"), and surreal nonsense ("Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west, and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.").
There are so many and they are delivered so quickly and intensively that it's easy to miss some of the thought and effort that would have gone into the writing of them. For example, at one point, he's dictating a letter, and says, "Gentlemen... question mark." For some reason, that had me chuckling more than it should have done. But, Groucho's gone and told another twenty jokes before I've had chance to process most of them.
Then there's Chico as Signor Emanuel Ravelli, a fraudulent musician with an oh-so-iffy Italian accent, and Harpo, a mute lunatic who communicates via honking, harp solos, chasing people and stealing things with no shame. At first, Harpo annoyed me but over time, I began to appreciate his comic abilities and kleptomania. And a late scene with him revealing a stash of stolen silverware was much funnier than it should be. I'm still not sure how nobody felt like smacking him in his face though.
The movie is mostly a series of routines one after the other. Most are comical, although there are some musical interludes which cause the pace to drop occassionally. There's Harpo's harp solo already mentioned, and there's a piano scene featuring Chico and Harpo. Plus the romance plot characters, John Parker and Arabella Rittenhouse (Hal Thompson and Lillian Roth) sing "Why Am I So Romantic?" together. Amongst the standout comic scenes are a card game between Mrs Rittenhouse, Arabella, Chico and Harpo. There's one where Groucho and Chico discuss the layout of an imaginary house. And, the letter dictation scene is also hilarious. Some jokes are also quite topical for their time. For example, while John and Arabella are discussing marriage and John laments his lack of money, he says, "Well, if I had any brains, I'd give up painting and get a regular job. You know, I had a cousin who made $50,000 on Wall Street last year." 1930s audiences would have been well aware of the situation at Wall Street at the time.
Everything is held together by its thin plot, and the film does feel very theatrical (it was adapted from their stage play of the same name), and did lead to writers at the time questioning the need for theatres if audiences could see the same shows for a fraction of the cost at a cinema. It also fell victim to the censors of the time, and subsequent releases of the movie featured parts cut from the original version. It was only after 2016 that the cuts were restored after an original uncensored version was located in the British Film Institute. Apparently it was also banned from American TV for a period of time too, but that was something to do with rights issues.
When I watched this film towards the end of March 2020, the world was in a pretty crazy place. This film was the perfect antidote. It's funny, entertaining and never fails to make things feel just a little bit better.