A Genteel Black Hole

_{Day 5 of Century of Cinema. Also day 48 of Project Glowing Rectangle, in which I try to divert some of my daily doomscrolling time back towards a more nourishing oblong: Cinema.}

Title: Animal Crackers
Director: Victor Heerman
Writer: Morrie Ryskind
Year: 1930
Country: USA

Format: Blu-ray
Length: 99 minutes
Seen: 22 April 2026
Rewatch

I haven’t made much time for films this past month, but today I finally resumed my Century of Cinema project with Animal Crackers (1930), a Marx Brothers musical comedy directed by Victor Heerman. The first full talkie of the project!

As with most Marx Brothers films, the plot is largely irrelephant. The action takes place at a high society party, hosted by Mrs Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont), to celebrate the return of the famous explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho)—the T. stands for Edgar. Also at the party are Signor Emanuel Ravelli (Chico) and the Professor (Harpo), a pair of musicians and petty criminals. The two of them get involved in a scheme to steal a valuable painting and replace it with a fake. But when some other guests hit upon a similar plan, all three paintings go missing and chaos ensues.

Captain Spaulding: One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.

Is Animal Crackers a perfect film? No. Did I have a great time watching it? Yes! The Marx Brothers’ madcap antics never fail to delight me. Groucho’s quickfire quips come at a dizzying pace, complemented perfectly by Chico’s malapropisms and Harpo’s silent slapstick. (Zeppo is also there.) Margaret Dumont is the perfect ‘straight man’ amid all the chaos: the stern and stately authority figure for all the Marxes (Groucho especially) to undermine. Then there’s the musical interludes. Chico’s fancy fingerwork on the piano always makes me grin, as does Harpo’s harping. It’s a welcome respite from the otherwise constant madcap energy.

Animal Crackers, being an early talkie and an adaptation of a stage play, has a certain ‘stagey’ quality that might put off some viewers. It took me a few minutes to tune back into that frequency myself. But once I got there, the smile never left my face.

~

_{On a personal note: I plan to continue blogging Century of Cinema, but I will probably do less blogging of my general film-viewing. The self-imposed pressure of blogging every film I watch has discouraged me from actually watching films, which is supposed to be a relaxing activity to re-centre myself. So from now on I plan to reclaim films as a leisure activity.}