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When Thompson hit seventy, he decided to change his lifestyle completely so that he could live longer. He went on a strict diet, he jogged, he swam, and he took sunbaths. In just three months’ time, Thompson lost thirty pounds, reduced his waist by six inches, and expanded his chest by five inches. Svelte and tan, he decided to top it all off with a sporty new haircut. Afterward, while stepping out of the barbershop, he was hit by a bus.
As he lay dying, he cried out, “God, how could you do this to me?” And a voice from the heavens responded, “To tell you the truth, Thompson, I didn’t recognise you.”
‘Animal Crackers’ (1930) was only the second Marx Brothers film, and their last stage to cinema transfer. The plot, not that it really matters, follows Captain Spaulding’s (Groucho Marx) welcome home party from exploring Africa. During this party, a famous painting is stolen which the Marx Brothers ‘help’ to recover. Just like the other four films from the Marx Brothers’ Paramount era, the plot is merely a string to thread together a relentless series of jokes and musical numbers. What mattered here was the ability to entertain, and plot was never going to get in the way of that. So if ‘Animal Crackers’ cannot contribute much in terms of plot or character development, what else can it offer other than entertainment?
‘Animal Crackers’ was released in 1930, a lengthy 88 years ago. Before man landed on the moon. Before World War Two. Before the invention of Velcro. This is an old film in the true sense. It was one of the first films to utilise the blossoming relationship between image and sound. ‘Animal Crackers’ is an artefact of time, allowing the viewer to watch just as the 1930’s audience would have. As a result, ‘Animal Crackers’ can be used as a reference point when considering the advancement of filmic language up to the present day. This is not a contemporarily recognisable film in terms of direction, possessing a far more theatrical style of cinematic language presented. Conversations are filmed in medium or long shots with both speakers in frame, opposed to the shot/reverse shot cutting which distinguishes film from stage, and the depth of field is often too shallow for the subject to be in focus. When Groucho is looking for his horse underneath a table, he becomes fuzzy when wondering into the background, whilst the foreground containing Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) and Horatio Jamison (Zeppo), remains in focus. Groucho here, as always, is the main subject on screen, yet the lens does not follow him. The camera acts as a member of a theatre audience, and the Marx Brothers are on the stage. ‘Animal Crackers’ is filmed this way because of being heavily influenced by vaudeville. Vaudeville theatre was the name given to the travelling acts which would perform throughout America’s theatres from the end of the civil war to its own demise brought about by talkies. These acts ranged from finely tuned tenor singers to farmers milking their cows with dance. Vaudeville was, in fact, where the Marx Brothers started off, touring the circuit with their comedy acts ‘Fun in Hi-Skule’, ‘The Coconauts’, and even the stage version of ‘Animal Crackers’. The main purpose of vaudeville acts was to entertain. The more entertaining an act, the more likely you were to be booked again. Because of this extraordinarily diverse array of acts, and the competition at the top, the Marx Brothers had to excel in more than comedy. Besides being funny, between them they could sing, play piano, play the harp, perform tough physical comedy, and dance.
The Marx Brothers always performed with the idea of entertaining. If a joke fell flat, there would be one straight after to cushion its fall. A song number needed no introduction, it was sung. Neither the Marx Brothers or their audience presided much over plot, they wanted to entertain and be entertained.
Vaudeville’s stage-like presence can be felt throughout the film, but none more than the opening of ‘Animal Crackers’ and its series of impromptu musical pieces. At the beginning of the film, each member of the Marx Brothers is introduced as a spectacle. Just as in ‘Duck Soup’ (1933), each Marx Brother walks (or in Groucho’s case, is carried by four African men) down a grand flight of stairs on their first appearance. These days such introductions are reserved for musicals, but here ‘Animal Crackers’ highlights the star status of the Marx Brothers. A film this aware of its own purpose (to exhibit the Marx Brothers’ multiple talents) therefore immediately excuses its lack of plot and finesse.
By inventing its own set of rules, the musical numbers in ‘Animal Crackers’ seem perfectly plausible. After one scene involving the two lovers in the garden, the camera tracks right to reveal Harpo and his harp. What follows is so beautiful to watch and listen to that you no longer care whether the plot will completely materialise and become fully enchanted with Harpo’s own spectacle. Although out of nowhere and with no aid to the film’s narrative, Harpo’s harp is one of the film’s highlights. It is impossible not to be astounded at how magnificent the harp sounds, and how at peace Harpo appears. He is not here for laughs; he is here to play the harp alone. For four minutes. And that fucking rocks. The other musical spectacle is Chico’s incredible piano playing. This scene is more formally introduced, with all the party’s guests waiting to be entertained by the piano. After the compulsory fooling around, Chico begins to play “one of [his] own compositions, by Victor Herman”. Just like Harpo’s harp, one can only marvel at how well the piano is played. Chico’s own ‘shooting the keys’ technique only adds to the amazement. These performances are even more impressive because they are the actual actor’s talents. The variety appeal of vaudeville is ever present in ‘Animal Crackers’, the spectacle never CGI, but genuine awe.
So ‘Animal Crackers’ is not a conventional film. It may have been by its contextual standards but compared to contemporary films it seems like a mess. One way to learn about a society is by documenting its actions, its employment figures, its quintessential ‘facts’. But when one sees what used to make them laugh, brief glimpses of their souls are provided. Film offers the opportunity to see this first-hand. With ‘Animal Crackers’ being from the dawn of recorded sound, the viewer can use ‘Animal Crackers’ as an insight into a world of yonder. Watching ‘Animal Crackers’ transports you back in time. The viewer watches the frames just as one would in 1930. I laughed at a joke about a rumble seat. I do not even know what a rumble seat is. But does that matter? I felt like I knew what a rumble seat was because Groucho is my window. He, and his brothers, let me look first-hand at another age.
Verisimilitude is the magical quality which makes ‘Animal Crackers’ understandable. Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo have established a world of absurdity where entertainment is all that matters. By creating instantly recognisable characters the Marx Brothers have achieved longevity. Each character can be used as a window into their contextual culture. Groucho occupies the same status as the fairy-tale prince or the dastardly villain in terms of society’s cultural needs. These characters in entertainment seem pre-embedded in the audience’s collective social mind. Groucho is an eternally familiar character, one which all generations can fall in love with. He therefore provides us a reference point, a window if you will, into that age. Groucho often serves as the audience’s guide through the film, inviting the viewer into the film with direct address. After making a joke about the make of his coat, Groucho looks directly into the camera and exclaims “They can’t all be funny.” This sort of self-reflexivity allows the viewer to engage further with the Marx Brothers’ zany world, and to become fully enveloped in their vaudeville spectacle.
Harpo’s presence in ‘Animal Crackers’, however, is different to Groucho’s. Whereas the character of Groucho seems to have spawned directly from the personality of Julius Marx, Harpo appears to be left over from the era of silent comedy. Rather than being a standalone character like Chaplin’s tramp, he is instead symbolic for the entirety of silent film. It is arguable that Harpo character was to bridge the gap between silent comedy and the talkies, but it seems more like he is defending, almost attacking the onset of speech. Groucho and Chico both make full use of cinema’s newfound sound recording, whereas Harpo, who does not talk at all, often steals the scene by making fools of the people who do.
‘Animal Crackers’ has transcended the medium of film and is now an ‘experience’. It is a relic of its time; a reflection of the 1930’s imprinted onto film. When one watches ‘Animal Crackers’ it is difficult to recognise the elements of film that today takes for granted. Shot and reverse shots, the proper use of close ups, a plot – are all things rather lacking from ‘Animal Crackers’, but do not make it any less of a film. Maybe film is now unrecognisable when compared to how it started, yet everything owes a great debt to what came before it. With the spectacle becoming progressively hollow in the age of CGI, maybe variety was better. Just like God’s reply to that dying man, “To tell you the truth, Thompson, I didn’t recognise you.”
Country: USA Budget: Length: 97mins
Filmography:
Duck Soup, 1933, Leo McCarey, Paramount Pictures
Pub/2008
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