Monkey Business

I found a copy of this 1931 Marx Bros. movie the other day at Half-Price and I've just watched it. (There's another 'Monkey Business' from the fifties with Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe which is very funny.)

As everyone knows, I'm a big fan of the Marxes but this particular film of theirs has always been something of the 'lost movie' for me. This is the first time I've watched it in probably twenty years. For some reason, it just never pops up on TV, at least that I've been able to tell. It was the very first one of theirs I ever watched... I remember when I was about 14 or so, walking into Jimmy Lehnert's room and it was on TV. He said, you've got to see this, it's hilarious.

In the years since, I came to love the Marx Brothers and eventually saw all their films, but 'Monkey Business' has always been elusive. It was never shown at conventions and an earlier videotape I had of it was defective.

Watching it now, I think there was never another Marx film as crammed full of one-liners and sight gags as this one. Hell, maybe no other film in history. Even the classics 'Duck Soup' and 'A Night At The Opera' don't come close.

The celebrated satirist S.J. Perelman wrote most of 'Monkey Business' and one can easily detect the difference between it and the rest of the team's output. He obviously delighted in writing brilliant one-liners for Groucho and devising outrageous sight gags for Harpo.

Speaking of Harpo, 'Monkey Business' catches him at his most manic. His character (if you can call it that) is crazy almost to the point of insanity. No one is safe from him, whether they are young blonde women who he inevitably gives chase to (at one point on a bicycle with a flower dangling in front of it, for some odd reason) or a poor man who complains of having a frog in his throat, or the hapless customs man who is attacked and has his bald head stamped by Harpo. Repeatedly. Harpo was never before or after as ruthless as he is here.

Something else that sets 'Monkey Business' apart is the almost complete lack of a plot. There is the barest thread of one, something to do with competing gangsters and toward the end, a woman being kidnapped, but it is so inconsequential as to be irrelevent to the movie as a whole. Even 'Duck Soup,' which is usually held up as the Marxes' best and 'craziest' film, has a definite storyline, loopy as it may be.

I suspect 'Monkey Business' is the closest document we'll ever have of what the Marx Bros. must have been like in their vaudeville shows. A series of comedic vignettes, alternately spotlighting one of the brothers and then a combination of two or more of them. It is surreal at times, and the team's boundless energy leaves one almost dizzy after watching it.

I remember a scene in 'Planet of the Apes,' when Charlton Heston's character has almost gone crazy and he screams, "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!"

That's about how you feel watching 'Monkey Business.' But in a funny way, of course.

Foghorn Leghorn

He was my favorite of all the old Warner Brothers cartoon characters. Why, I'm not really certain. He just really made me laugh. Jimmy Lehnert and I were constantly quoting Foghorn and even drew our own comics with a character called 'Shooster Fighorn' that was obviously Foghorn Leghorn.

I've just been reading up on him and found out a lot I didn't know. He starred in 30 WB cartoons from 1946 to 1963. I had no idea that the series lasted that long. Foghorn was based on a character created by radio comedian Kenny Delmar, Senator Claghorn. Delmar made one movie as Claghorn, 'It's a Joke, Son.' I've seen it and trust me, the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons are much funnier.

The very first Foghorn cartoon, 'Walky Talky Hawky,' was directed by Robert McKimson (who apparently created the character and would direct all 30 cartoons) and was nominated for an Academy Award! 'Walky Talky Hawky' was actually intended to launch a series of cartoons starring Henery Hawk, who as it turns out did appear in many subsequent Foghorn Leghorn shorts. But it must have been apparent from audience reaction who the star of the cartoon was, as it instead inaugurated Foghorn's own series.

The dog who was his constant adversary was simply known as 'Dawg' and it was their running battles that provided most of the amusement, though the aforementioned Henery, as well as a weasel and the spinster Miss Prissy showed up pretty frequently.

Here are just a few of Foghorn's more memorable quotes-

"Lookie here son, did ya see that hawk after those hens? He scared 'em! That Rhode Island Red turned white. Then blue. Rhode Island. Red, white, and blue. That's a joke, son. A flag waver."

"You're built too low. The fast ones go over your head. Ya got a hole in your glove. I keep pitchin' 'em and you keep missin' 'em. Ya gotta keep your eye on the ball. Eye. Ball. I almost had a gag, son. Joke, that is."

"Okay, I'll shut up. Some fellas have to keep their tongues flappin' but not me. I was brought up right. My pa used to tell me to shut up and I'd shut up. I wouldn't say nothin'. One time darn near starved to death. WOULDN'T TELL HIM I WAS HUNGRY!!"

"That dawg is strictly G.I. -- Gibbering Idiot!"

"Y'know, I almost hated to spring one on that bonehead. Hey, I made a funny. Spring bone! Ha ha ha!"

The New Twilight Zone- 'Wordplay'

Starting in 1988, The New Twilight Zone ran on CBS for three seasons. It was a classy series: each hour-long episode featured two or three stories, usually written by well-known sf writers and always well-produced.

I recently ran across an old VHS tape I had forgotten I had. It has, I think, the first six episodes of the series.

The first story of that first episode set the tone for much of what was to follow. It's called 'Wordplay' and it is clever, spooky, and funny. Written by Rockne S. O'Bannon and directed by noted horror film director Wes Craven, it tells the story of a salesman, Bill Lowery (played by Robert Klein) who notices over the course of a day that everyone around him has begun speaking a twisted form of English that he can't comprehend. It starts off slowly, just an odd word here and there but by the end of the day, nothing makes sense anymore... even signs and the dashboard indicators of his car have changed, as well as his name apparently (the much more memorable 'Hinge Thunder.')

It's a variation on the feeling we've all had at one time or another- is the whole world crazy or is it just me? Robert Klein (whom I've never cared for as a comedian) is very good as Bill/Hinge, as is Annie Potts as his wife. Before the language becomes completely unfathomable to him, they have this exchange-

Bill- Can't you hear what you're saying? You're saying 'dinosaur' instead of 'lunch!'
Kathy- 'Dinosaur' instead of 'lunch?' Bill, what on earth are you talking about?

The last shot is of Bill/Hinge picking up a child's primer in his young son's room and opening it to a picture of a dog. The caption reads 'Wednesday.'

And then you hear the familiar Twilight Zone theme...