Blu-Ray restoration of pre-Code Animal Crackers ~ Wonderfully sexy with newly added scenes!!!
Animal Crackers has been my favorite Marx Brothers film since the first time I saw it on the Big Screen back in the late 1970s after it was rediscovered. Animal Crackers has more quoted lines from it than any other Marx Brothers feature, and for good reason. The writing in it sparkles. It was only their second sound film, but it was the last based on one of the Marx Brothers Broadway plays. It was a smash hit on stage because the brothers had time to polish the script, their delivery and added improvisations based on the live audience reactions. All of which was built on their decades long Vaudeville career and their recent Broadway smash Coconuts also turned into one of the finest musical comedies ever, let alone 1929!
SPOILERS:
But the recent Blu-Ray restoration added several censored lines that have been missing for decades. I noticed at least four: 1) At the party scene at the beginning of Groucho's speech about going on safari in Africa he talks about a rhinoceros aiming a gun at Groucho. When asked what he did, he answers married the rhinoceros' daughter. 2) At the dictation scene at the beginning of Groucho's letter he mentions a girl getting scratched. 3) At the end of the letter Zeppo as his secretary mentions a girl getting scratched and Groucho says it's the other way around the man scratches the girl! 4) In the scene where Harpo wakes up on the bench, sleeping on the paintings the neighbor lady tries to get the stolen paintings away from him saying she knows what a woman wants and Harpo then spanks her rear end using the painting.
Bottom line: A very funny film with some pre-Code risqué lines put back in. 10 stars!
Animal Crackers has been my favorite Marx Brothers film since the first time I saw it on the Big Screen back in the late 1970s after it was rediscovered. Animal Crackers has more quoted lines from it than any other Marx Brothers feature, and for good reason. The writing in it sparkles. It was only their second sound film, but it was the last based on one of the Marx Brothers Broadway plays. It was a smash hit on stage because the brothers had time to polish the script, their delivery and added improvisations based on the live audience reactions. All of which was built on their decades long Vaudeville career and their recent Broadway smash Coconuts also turned into one of the finest musical comedies ever, let alone 1929!
SPOILERS:
But the recent Blu-Ray restoration added several censored lines that have been missing for decades. I noticed at least four: 1) At the party scene at the beginning of Groucho's speech about going on safari in Africa he talks about a rhinoceros aiming a gun at Groucho. When asked what he did, he answers married the rhinoceros' daughter. 2) At the dictation scene at the beginning of Groucho's letter he mentions a girl getting scratched. 3) At the end of the letter Zeppo as his secretary mentions a girl getting scratched and Groucho says it's the other way around the man scratches the girl! 4) In the scene where Harpo wakes up on the bench, sleeping on the paintings the neighbor lady tries to get the stolen paintings away from him saying she knows what a woman wants and Harpo then spanks her rear end using the painting.
Bottom line: A very funny film with some pre-Code risqué lines put back in. 10 stars!