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Animal Crackers

By on December 11, 2019

While movie historians and classic-comedy fans practically worship ANIMAL CRACKERS as a high point of the Marx Brothers career, it’s a rickety, primitive talkie with an insubstantial plot. The Marx Brothers were famous vaudevillians, and this is pretty much a filmed version of a play they did. You get the impression the director just left the camera running and went for coee while the comics did their verbal gymnastics and slapstick unattended. While much of the antics are hilarious, some will fly right over the heads of modern viewers.

For example: When Groucho goes into “strange interludes,” talking to the camera in gloomy, poetic terms, he’s mocking an avant-garde Eugene O’Neill drama that was a recent Broadway hit.

There are a lot of spoofy touches and asides, and viewers who don’t have a strong grasp on the time period — or patience for a static lens POV — might ␣find Animal Crackers far from the king of the comedy jungle, despite its “classic” status.

Age 7+ Out in theatres Dec 21

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