Monkey Business (1931 Film) - Reception and Impact

Reception and Impact

Monkey Business was a phenomenal success, and is considered one of the Marx Brothers' greatest works. The film was evidently based on two routines the Marx Brothers did during their early days in vaudeville (Home Again and Mr. Green's Reception), along with a story idea from one of Groucho's friends, Bert Granet, called The Seas Are Wet. The passport scene is a reworking of a stage sketch in which the brothers burst into a theatrical agent's office auditioning an impersonation of a current big star. It appeared in their stage shows On the Mezzanine Floor and I'll Say She Is (1924). This skit was also done by the Marxes in the Paramount promotional film The House That Shadows Built (1931).

The concept of the Marx Brothers being stowaways on a ship would be repeated in an episode of their 1933 radio series Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel in the episode "The False Roderick" and would also be recycled in their later MGM film A Night at the Opera (1935). Also, the essence of Groucho's joke, "Sure, I'm a doctor—where's the horse?" would serve as an integral element for their later MGM movie A Day at the Races (1937). Also, the uproarious medical examination that Harpo and Chico give opera singer Madame Swempski (Cecil Cunningham) would later be repeated in A Day at the Races.