About Animal Crackers (1930)
The story behind the film
Animal Crackers was the second Marx Brothers feature, adapted from their hit 1928 Broadway musical by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, with songs by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Like their first film, The Cocoanuts, it was shot at Paramount's Astoria studios in Queens, New York, and much of the Broadway cast, including Margaret Dumont, reprised their stage roles. Director Victor Heerman was reportedly hired partly to keep the unruly brothers in line on set.
The plot is the merest excuse for comedy. Wealthy society hostess Mrs. Rittenhouse throws a weekend party at her Long Island estate in honour of the famous African explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, and plans to unveil a valuable painting. Several guests, for reasons of their own, plan to swap the painting with a copy — and then the copy gets swapped too.
Cast & crew
- Directed by Victor Heerman; screenplay by Morrie Ryskind
- Groucho Marx as Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding
- Chico Marx as Signor Emanuel Ravelli
- Harpo Marx as the Professor
- Zeppo Marx as Horatio Jamison, Spaulding's secretary
- Margaret Dumont as Mrs. Rittenhouse
- Lillian Roth as Arabella Rittenhouse
- Louis Sorin as Roscoe W. Chandler, the art collector
Why it's worth watching
This is the Marx Brothers close to their stage peak, and it's packed with classic routines. Groucho's entrance, carried in on a litter while the guests sing "Hooray for Captain Spaulding", became his signature song for the rest of his career. His rambling lecture on his African adventures contains one of his most quoted jokes, about shooting an elephant in his pajamas. Chico mangles the language as only he can, and Harpo — silent, anarchic, with a coat full of impossible objects — steals every scene he's in, including a piano and harp interlude.
Margaret Dumont, the brothers' perennial dignified target, is wonderful as always.
Fun facts
- "Hello, I Must Be Going" also comes from this film and became another Groucho signature.
- The film was cut when it was reissued in 1936 to satisfy the stricter Production Code; a 2016 restoration from a print found in the British Film Institute's archive put back censored material.
- Legal disputes over the rights took the film out of circulation in the late 1950s. A fan campaign, supported by Groucho himself, led Universal to settle and re-release it in 1974.
Public-domain status
Animal Crackers was published in 1930 and entered the US public domain on January 1, 2026. See "Rights & source" below.