Produced by Paramount Pictures at their Astoria Studios in Queens, Animal Crackers was the Marx Brothers' second feature film, following The Cocoanuts (1929). The production faced significant challenges in adapting the stage musical to early sound cinema. The studio made extensive cuts to musical numbers and restructured the original material. Director Victor Heerman was brought in specifically to manage the disruptive behavior of the Marx Brothers on set.
The film was both a critical and commercial success upon its August 1930 release, earning $3.1 million worldwide and establishing several of the Marx Brothers' most famous comedic routines. Following the film's release, Groucho's songs "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" and "Hello, I Must Be Going" became signature pieces, with the former serving as the theme for his television quiz show, You Bet Your Life. The film's humor and surrealist elements influenced later comedy filmmaking and earned recognition from avant-garde critics like Antonin Artaud, as well as filmmakers like François Truffaut and Jim Jarmusch.
Legal issues over literary and distribution rights led Animal Crackers to be withdrawn from circulation in the late 1950s. Following a fan campaign led by UCLA students and supported by Groucho, Universal Pictures, who by then owned the rights to the film, settled the legal problems in 1974 and Animal Crackers was re-released to theaters and television. The film was restored in 2016 based on a print found in the British Film Institute, which included some previously censored material.
Plot
Mrs. Rittenhouse hosts a weekend party at her Long Island mansion in honor of African explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding. Art patron Roscoe W. Chandler plans to unveil his newly acquired painting there: After The Hunt, by the artist Beaugard. Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his silent partner, known only as the Professor, are present to perform music. Captain Spaulding arrives to cheers ("Hooray for Captain Spaulding") but immediately announces his departure ("Hello, I Must Be Going").
Mrs. Rittenhouse's daughter Arabella schemes to swap the painting with a copy made by her fiancé John Parker, in order to impress Chandler with John's talent. She enlists Ravelli to help. He and the Professor try the switch during a blackout but are interrupted by Captain Spaulding and Mrs. Rittenhouse. [a]
Two other guests—Grace Carpenter and Mrs. Whitehead—plan to swap the painting with a bad copy Grace made, in order to embarrass Mrs. Rittenhouse. Grace and Mrs Whitehead enlist Hives, the Rittenhouse butler, for their scheme.
Ravelli and the Professor recognize Chandler as a fraud—his real identity is "Abie," a fish peddler from Czechoslovakia.[b] Following a lecture on Africa by Captain Spaulding and music by Ravelli and the Professor ("I'm Daffy Over You", "Silver Threads Among the Gold"), the painting—replaced by Grace's copy—is revealed. Chandler immediately realizes his artwork has been stolen. John, thinking Chandler was reacting to his painting, is disappointed by his negative reaction. The lights go out and the forged painting vanishes. John and Arabella reflect on how romantic it was to be there while the theft took place ("Why Am I So Romantic?").
Police arrive the following day to investigate the theft. John discovers Grace's copy and realizes Chandler hasn't seen his. Police arrest the Professor, and recover all three paintings. Chandler briefly mistakes John's copy for the genuine one, recognizes his talent, and commissions him for a series of portraits.
The Professor escapes custody and sprays the guests with a sedative using a Flit gun. He then sprays himself as well, and the film ends with all characters unconscious on the floor.
Cast
Groucho as Captain Spaulding in 1928 publicity photo for the Broadway musical, taken by White Studio
In February 1930, following The Cocoanuts' commercial success, Paramount Pictures signed the Marx Brothers to star in a followup. Because Paramount had not yet secured the rights to the brothers' then-current BroadwaymusicalAnimal Crackers from producer Sam H. Harris, they planned to commission an original screenplay from Ben Hecht. However, Paramount obtained the film rights in March and began pre-production with the goal of commencing filming in May.[8]
The stage-to-screen adaptation presented unique challenges during the early sound era. The Cocoanuts was filmed in its entirety, and then extensively cut to achieve a shorter runtime.[9] To avoid this expense, Paramount enlisted co-author Morrie Ryskind to accompany the Marx Brothers on tour and observe performances to identify material suitable for elimination.[10] The revision process significantly changed the original structure: characters and scenes were removed, and some roles were consolidated. The stage version's female love interest was merged with the Arabella Rittenhouse character, while wealthy financier Roscoe Chandler was combined with art dealer Monsieur Doucet.[11]
Paramount enlisted Victor Heerman as director partly due to his reputation for maintaining discipline with performers, as both the Marx Brothers and Roth were known for unprofessional behavior on set.[12][13] Heerman also contributed to cuts, insisting on the removal of most of the musical numbers, including the play's grand finale, which featured the brothers as 18th-century French courtiers romancing Madame du Barry.[14] When the Marx Brothers, Ryskind, and composers Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby objected to removing the musical elements, Heerman held a test screening with early footage,[6] and the audience's enthusiastic response convinced the creative team to support Heerman's vision, though he agreed to retain "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" at Ryskind's urging.[10]
Much of the cast, including the Marx Brothers, Robert Grieg, Margaret Dumont, Louis Sorin, and Margaret Irving, reprised their roles from the Broadway production. The love interests from the play—Alice Wood as Arabella Rittenhouse and Milton Watson as John Parker—were replaced by Lillian Roth and Hal Thompson. In Roth's autobiography I'll Cry Tomorrow, she described her casting as a punishment; upon being told of it by Paramount executive B. P. Schulberg, she remembered being "stunned. I left him standing [...] and ran crying into another room. But his word was law."[15]
Filming
Kaufman Astoria Studios, where Animal Crackers was filmed, pictured in 2014
Principal photography began on April 28, 1930[16] at the Astoria Studios in Queens, where art director William Saulter constructed the elaborate Rittenhouse manor set, which included a detailed lawn and interior, and was then the largest ever built in the Astoria building.[8]
Like other studios during the early sound era, Paramount faced significant challenges in capturing quality audio recordings. The production of The Cocoanuts had been hampered by primitive sound recording technology, with directors employing cumbersome workarounds to reduce background noise, such as minimizing camera movement and soaking paper props in water to prevent audible crinkling.[d][9] By 1930, recording technology had advanced sufficiently to eliminate most of these constraints, though music still required on-set recording rather than post-production dubbing, complicating the editing process. Without the ability to dub or re-record, it was impossible to cut the middle of a scene without an abrupt cut in the music. Heerman later remembered that the music department got to choose which take of a scene was used, and preferred one where Groucho had moved out of shot because "the clarinet sounded much better".[17]
During screen tests, some shots were filmed using Multicolor. This footage is the earliest known color film of the Marx Brothers, and features Harpo without his usual costume and wig. It was later incorporated into a short film entitled Wonderland of California.[e] Although shooting the film entirely in color would have been prohibitively expensive, this Multicolor sequence was later used to help persuade Howard Hughes to invest in the process.[f][10] Approximately 15 seconds of this footage resurfaced in the 1990s, and was aired as a part of the 1998 Turner Classic Movies documentary Glorious Technicolor.[18]
While Heerman kept control of the filming schedule, Lillian Roth remembered the filming as being "one step removed from a circus", with the Marx Brothers regularly arriving late, taking long lunches, and leaving early.[19] Heerman assigned an assistant director to track each of them.[20] Rumors persisted that Heerman constructed an actual jail cell to confine the Brothers, but he denied this, saying "These were adult men [...] and they didn't have to be locked in."[17] Contemporary reports describe a makeup trailer decorated to resemble a jail cell. The trailer, complete with "Animal Crackers Hoosegow" painted on its exterior, was never locked, but served as a relaxation space for the performers.[17]
Principal photography for Animal Crackers was complete by mid-June, although Harpo, who had developed glandular fever, had to be brought back over the July 4th weekend to film his harp solo.[21]
Censorship
Because the film industry had adopted the Motion Picture Production Code in 1930, the producers of Animal Crackers had to submit their script for approval prior to filming. Although the code wasn't strictly enforced before 1934, the censors' objections resulted in the removal or modification of several scenes and lines during pre-production. References to Arabella Rittenhouse's drinking were cut, including the line "Don't worry, mother, I won't disgrace you. I can hold my liquor with any of them." The censors also removed references to Mussolini and required changes to Jamison's lyrics, transforming "the women hot, the champagne cold" to "the women warm, the champagne cold."[22]
After filming was complete, censors suggested more cuts, but these were largely ignored by the studio. Proposed deletions included double entendres such as "We took some pictures of the native girls but they weren't developed. We are going back in a couple of weeks" and "Signor Ravelli's first selection will be 'Somewhere My Love Lies Sleeping' with a male chorus."[22] During "Hooray for Captain Spaulding", Groucho's line "I think I'll try and make her"—which followed Mrs. Rittenhouse's declaration "He is the only white man to cover every acre"—was flagged for removal. This line survived the original 1930 release, but was cut from the 1936 re-release.[23]
For 80 years, the censored re-release print was the only one shown in the United States and most other countries. The 2016 restoration of the film, based on a complete print found in the British Film Institute, finally included all of the censored material, adding up to about two minutes. The restored bits included the "I think I'll try and make her" line, a scene where Harpo pulls a female guest's slip out from under her dress with his teeth, and Groucho telling a joke about a "shotgun wedding".[24]
Music
The cover of the sheet music to the song "Why Am I So Romantic"
Most of the music written by Kalmar and Ruby for the Animal Crackers musical was not used in the film. The romantic leads' shared song, "Why Am I So Romantic", was written specifically for the film.[25] Songs present in the musical but removed from the film include "Cool Off" and "The Long Island Low-Down", sung by Grace Carpenter; "News", "When Things Are Bright and Rosy", "Who's Been Listening to My Heart?", and "Watching the Clouds Roll By", sung by the romantic leads; the ensemble piece "Go Places and Do Things"; and a Marx brothers piece from the cut du Barry scene, "We're Four of the Three Musketeers". The opening number, led by Hives, was shortened: the original version contained several more verses, including parts sung by the maids and guests.[26]
Animal Crackers has often been identified as social satire. Author Simon Louvish identifies the Marx Brothers as anti-establishment figures who challenge social hierarchies with their anarchic behavior, exposing the perceived absurdity and hollowness of high society's rituals and claims to sophistication. He believes that Captain Spaulding's explorer persona and the art theft plot satirize the upper class's obsession with cultural status symbols. Louvish states that "the Brothers get to trash 'polite' society, stripping it of its pretensions and conceits. Abie the Fishpeddler is exposed, the police are confounded, and the sweet hopes of youth are realized."[28]
Louvish further reads the story as positing the idea that society, despite its absurdity, will triumph against revolutionaries, who will eventually join it on their own terms.[29] He identifies Captain Spaulding as a social climber[30] and notes Harpo's final act of anesthetizing himself alongside the party guests as evidence that the brothers ultimately seek acceptance within the establishment.[31]
In a 1976 essay, writer and critic Gianni Celati saw an anti-establishment tendency in Animal Crackers, exemplified by the Brothers' physical roughness and their behavior, which he characterizes as being "bent solely on touching, disrupting, wrecking and invading space." In his reading, the Brothers choose to stage their acts in crowded places where spectators are dragged into the action. In this arena, objects generally seen as "important", such as works of art, are made fun of and treated as 'common' objects. He specifically notes the rough treatment given to the painting, which he sees as a symbol of the establishment, citing the scene in which the painting is used by Harpo as a blanket. [32]
Zeppo, who typically played the role of straight man, also contributes to the social satire. In one scene, Groucho dictates a ridiculously convoluted letter to Zeppo; when asked to read back the letter, Zeppo's response is "Now, you said a lot of things here that I didn't think were important, so I just omitted them." Critic Joe Adamson observed that "it takes a Marx Brother to pull something like that on a Marx Brother and get away with it."[33]
Anarchic humor and surrealism
Animal Crackers has generated critical debate over whether its comedic approach constitutes surrealism.
One side of this debate was presented by avant-garde writer Antonin Artaud opined that the film constituted an example of surrealism, and that it achieved "a liberation through the medium of the screen of a particular magic", and that the film's humor constituted a liberation from reality, achieved through surrealist logic which conflicts with that which is familiar. He suggests the film's intent goes beyond mere humor; it constitutes a "destruction of all reality in the mind."[34]
On the other hand, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch argues that Artaud misinterprets the Brothers because of his lack of proficiency in the English language. He characterizes the film as anarchist, but disagrees that it is surrealist.[35] Historian Keith Eggener noted a disconnect between the formal theories of surrealism as expressed by writers like André Breton and how surrealism was interpreted in the United States, which he characterized as stripping away the psychic and social revolutionary intent of surrealism, saying that "when Americans at this time spoke of Surrealism's attachment to Marx, they were usually talking about Groucho or Harpo." Eggener posits that the movie may have had surrealist elements, but without intent and symbolic imagery, it could not be truly surrealist.[36]
There is evidence to support the notion that the Marx Brothers prioritized commercial interest over art. Although painter Salvador Dalí described Animal Crackers as "the summit of the evolution of comic cinema",[37] when he prepared an explicitly surrealist proposal for a Marx Brothers movie, it was rejected by Groucho and MGM as being too surrealist;[38] Groucho's exact words were "it won't play"—suggesting that their primary intent was to entertain.[39]
Release
1930 release and 1936 re-release
Newspaper ad for Animal Crackers (1930)
Animal Crackers premiered on August 28, 1930, at the Rialto Theatre in New York[21] and earned an estimated $30,000 on its release weekend, earning first place at the box office.[40] By June 1932, the film had earned $1.5 million in worldwide theatrical rentals.[41] In 1936, the film was reissued with several small cuts to accommodate the Production Code. This version ran about 96 minutes, two minutes shorter than the original.
Rights issues and 1974 re-release
Due to Paramount Pictures' failure to renegotiate the American film rights, Animal Crackers reverted to the original authors: playwrights George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, and composers Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar in 1956.[42] Two years later, MCA Inc. acquired the film rights, but could not secure the stage play rights due to Kaufman's and Ryskind's financial demands.[43]
These legal restrictions prevented Animal Crackers from being shown theatrically, or broadcast on television in the United States,[44] but it could be shown in Canada, outside the restricted area.[h] The last known domestic theatrical release of the film was in 1949 (alongside Duck Soup),[45][46] Paramount is only known to have reissued it internationally twice: in Canada in 1951[47] and in France in 1955.[48] Marx Brothers fans in the United States were unable to see Animal Crackers until 16mm copies of a Canadian TV print began circulating on the collectors' market. Some theaters took a chance on showing these inferior, unauthorized copies to paying audiences, but these revivals were not heavily publicized and escaped MCA's notice.
One such screening, in December, 1973 in Anaheim, California at the Old Town Music Hall, was attended by Steve Stoliar, a student at UCLA and Marx Brothers enthusiast. Stoliar contacted Groucho Marx, seeking his support for a campaign to have Animal Crackers legally re-released.[49] Groucho agreed to appear at a UCLA publicity event.[50]
On February 7, 1974, Groucho and his assistant Erin Fleming joined Stoliar's "Committee for the Re-release of Animal Crackers" (CRAC) at UCLA.[51] The event was attended by approximately 200 students, generated over 2,000 signatures on re-release petitions, drew several reporters and attracted national media attention. Shortly afterward, Universal Pictures, who owned the film rights, announced that an agreement had been reached with the authors and their estates.[52]
After the UCLA appearance generated attention in the national media, Groucho was invited to appear on The Merv Griffin Show. To gauge public interest in a possible wider re-release, Universal screened a new print of the film at the UA Theater in Westwood on May 23, 1974, with Groucho making a personal appearance. The positive public response prompted Universal to stage a screening at New York's Sutton Theater on June 23, also attended by Groucho, in which a near-riot erupted and a police escort was required. Following these successful screenings, Animal Crackers entered national release.[53]Animal Crackers remained unavailable for television viewing until a special broadcast of the film by CBS on July 21, 1979.[54]
The complete, uncut version of Animal Crackers—which had been available only in an edited form since its 1936 reissue—was restored in 2016 from a 35mm duplicate negative held by the British Film Institute, and given a brief theatrical run.[24]
Animal Crackers will enter the public domain in 2026.[55]
Reception
Reviews of Animal Crackers have been mostly positive. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 30 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8/10.[56]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[57]
The film was critically praised on its release. Critic Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times gave it a positive review, describing it as a "further example of amusing nonsense ... This mad affair suits the principals and its absurdities brought forth gales of laughter yesterday afternoon." He added the caveat that "It is, however, the sort of thing that will only appeal to those who revel in the work of these four brothers."[58] The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of August 29, 1930 agreed, saying "If the four Marx Brothers were funny in The Cocoanuts [...] they manage to reach the topmost heights of lunacy in they newest opus," and ending with "It is just about the surest cure for the blues that could ever be prescribed."[59]
The trade publications also gave Animal Crackers positive coverage. The Film Daily compared it favorably to The Cocoanuts, saying "The four Marx Brothers are back in the talkers, this time doing better than in their first. Their popular brand of comedy pervades the picture, so much in fact that there is little footage left for a love plot of any importance. While most of the repartee is nonsense, it gets the laughs and that's what counts."[60] Given the film's financial success, the positive review in Variety remarked on the implications for the film industry in a successful translation of a stage comedy to the screen, writing, "Perhaps a little trade stuff here might serve better than a waste of words to tell about a dough film that's already in". They further predicted that the public would stop going to see touring shows, opting instead to wait for the release of the film: "[G]iving Paramount extreme credit for reproducing Animal Crackers intact from the stage. [...] That is of such benefit it asks why Animal Crackers on stage at $5.50, when even the ruralites know they will see it later on the screen for 50 or 75c?"[61] The Film Spectator gave a negative review, writing, "I am sorry I saw it."[25]
The 1974 re-release of Animal Crackers prompted critics to reassess the film. In a review in The Los Angeles Free Press, critic Dick Lochte offered a positive review, writing that, "With a Marx Brothers movie, success becomes largely a matter of routines. And Animal Crackers provides some of their best."[62] The Christian Science Monitor, while noting that the film's production was dated, still praised the comedy: "Animal Crackers is a peach."[63] A New York Times review, written for the film's first television broadcast on CBS in 1979, described Animal Crackers as "uneven", but still found it to be funny: "at one point, Groucho turns toward the camera and explains, 'All the jokes can't be good — you got to expect that once in a while.' In Animal Crackers, however, the good ones are very, very good."[64]
Legacy
Animal Crackers has influenced comedy and cinema in the decades since its release, with several commentators expressing praise for it. French New Wave director François Truffaut praised the Marx Brothers in his 1954 review of the film, calling them the "greatest American comedians of the prewar decade" and ranking it as their best work alongside A Night at the Opera. Truffaut opined that the film had enduring appeal, writing that "One laughs with this movie as much as one did twenty years ago."[65] Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch listed the Marx Brothers as "one of his guilty pleasures", specifically citing Animal Crackers.[35] Actor and director Stanley Tucci selected Animal Crackers for his personal list of influential works that shaped his artistic development.[66]
The TV series MASH featured a character named Captain Calvin Spalding, named after Captain Spaulding. He was played by Loudon Wainwright III, and appeared in early episodes where Alan Alda's Groucho-inspired portrayal of Hawkeye Pierce further cemented the connection between the Marx Brothers' comedic legacy and that show's style of comedy.[71]Rob Zombie used "Captain Spaulding" as one of several Marx Brothers-inspired pseudonyms for Sid Haig's murderous clown character John Cutter in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects.[72] After Groucho's death, talk show host Dick Cavett remarked, "We had lost Captain Spaulding."[73]
Soundtrack
The film's songs have recurred in the Marx Brothers' later work and maintained a presence in works by other artists. "Hello, I Must Be Going" and "Hooray for Captain Spaulding", both written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, became recurring themes for Groucho through the years. An instrumental version of "Hooray For Captain Spaulding" served as the theme music for most of the run of Groucho's quiz show You Bet Your Life. Woody Allen incorporated both English and French performances of the song in a scene toward the end of his 1996 film Everyone Says I Love You.
Chico's piano composition "I'm Daffy over You" became his signature song. It would be featured again in their next feature film, Monkey Business, and he is heard playing it in his last recorded appearance, in the television pilot Deputy Seraph.[75]
In 2004, Universal released Animal Crackers on DVD as part of "The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection".[78] In 2016, they released a restored edition on Blu-ray, including previously censored content, as part of The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection Restored Edition, featuring commentary by film historian Jeffrey Vance.[79] Both collections featured their first five films: The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup.
↑ Film scholars have noted that the brothers' characters appear to be played by stand-ins during the blackout sequence where the paintings are switched.[2] No known documentation indicates whether stand-ins were used, nor why they would have been used, or what their identities would have been. Some have hypothesized that Zeppo may have doubled for Groucho, since he sometimes did so on stage, but there is no evidence of this.[3] Matthew Coniam, author of The Annotated Marx Brothers, identifies the brothers' official stand-ins as Jack Cooper (for Harpo), Packey O'Gatty (for Chico), and Henry Van Bousen (for Groucho).[4]
↑ Some sources[5][6] say that Ravelli identifies this character as "Abe Kabibble", which is one of the identities that he guesses before the positive identification as "Abie". "Abe Kabibble" was the lead character in comic strip Abie the Agent, about a Jewish car salesman who looked somewhat like the Chandler character.[7]
↑ On the opening cast card, Groucho is billed as "Jeffrey Spaulding". A newspaper headline shown immediately after the credits identifies him as "Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding"
↑ The presence of wet paper is especially noticeable in the famous Why a Duck? sequence in The Cocoanuts.
↑ The title Wonderland of California is somewhat misleading, because Animal Crackers was both set and filmed in New York.
↑ Hughes later used the Multicolor process for one scene in his film Hell's Angels.
↑ The refrain to "I'm Daffy Over You" is sometimes confused with the 1950s song "Sugar in the Morning"
↑ A similar situation arose in 1968, when stage rights forced MCA to withdraw the Olsen and Johnson comedy Hellzapoppin' from TV distribution in America, but not in Canada.
↑ Partial evidence of the interest in Captain Spaulding can be seen in the rumors that have circulated claiming that the character was named after an army officer arrested a few years earlier for selling cocaine to Hollywood residents. Groucho denied these rumors, saying "Contrary to popular mythology, Captain Spaulding's name wasn't taken from that of a Hollywood dope peddler. The name was concocted by two New Yorkers who'd spent little time in California: Kaufman and Ryskind."[69]
↑ The copyright year is 1986 on the back of the VHS jacket.
Frank, Josh; Heidecker, Tim; Pertega, Manuela (2019). Giraffes on Horseback Salad: Salvador Dali, the Marx Brothers, and the Strangest Movie Never Made. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books. ISBN978-1-59474-923-0.
Juster, Norton; Feiffer, Jules; Marcus, Leonard (October 25, 2011). The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth. New York: Knopf. ISBN9780375857157.
Kanfer, Stefan (2000). Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN0-375-70207-5.
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