Movie review – Marx #2 – “Animal Crackers” (1930) ***1/2

The second Marx brothers film, though also based on a musical, has better photography than The Cocoanuts and is that bit more confidently adapted for film – though still with that tell-tale reluctance to use close ups or put the camera in unusual places that you find in early sound pictures. This one gives Groucho a big entrance – well, actually Zeppo’s the first one you see, as Groucho’s secretary, and he sings a few bars before Grouco is bought in by bearers and launches into ‘Hooray for Captain Spaulding’. But again the action doesn’t really get going until Chico and Harpo appear.

The material isn’t much stronger than Cocoanuts – in fact a lot of it is identical, with a plot concerning a stolen item (in this case a painting). There are a lot of routines. I occasionally felt some of the Groucho stuff dragged (though his lines are funny); Harpo is at his brilliant, sociopathic best and it’s totally fitting he is revealed to be the kleptomaniac villain.

Zeppo fans (if you exist) will be pleased to see he gets a little more to do in this one – singing a few lines, taking part in a routine with Groucho. The ingénue (Lillian Roth who became an alcoholic and had a film made about her life) is very pretty in a modern way; the male lead is wet. Note how even thought this painting is meant to be so valuable whenever people treat it they handle it like wrapping paper.