Animal Crackers (1930) on Netflix
Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding returns from Africa to a party Mrs. Rittenhouse gives, where Roscoe W. Chandler will unveil a painting. Arabella Rittenhouse schemes to swap in her fiancé's copy.
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Trailer
Plot summary
At her Long Island mansion, Mrs. Rittenhouse gives a weekend party for Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, back from his African expeditions. The other guests include the musicians Signor Emanuel Ravelli and the Professor, and the art patron Roscoe W. Chandler, who is to unveil his newly acquired painting, After the Hunt by Beaugard. Arabella Rittenhouse hopes to launch the career of her fiancé, John Parker: he made a close copy of the Beaugard during his studies, and she enlists Ravelli to switch it for the original, so that Chandler will be impressed when the deception is revealed. Mrs. Whitehead and Grace Carpenter plan a swap of their own, meant to embarrass Mrs. Rittenhouse, though the copy Grace made in art school is a poor imitation. They persuade Hives, the butler, to substitute theirs.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Animal Crackers (1930)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Screen tests for Animal Crackers were shot in Multicolor and are the earliest known color film of the Marx Brothers, showing Harpo without his usual costume and wig. The footage later appeared in the short Wonderland of California, and since only four Multicolor cameras existed, shooting the whole film in color was impractical.
- Lillian Roth's casting was reportedly a punishment: Paramount's B. P. Schulberg told her she was being sent to New York to be "kicked in the rear by the Marx Brothers" for her behavior on set. Roth, who played Arabella Rittenhouse, burst into tears at the news.
- Rumours that director Victor Heerman built a jail cell to lock up the Marx Brothers were denied by Heerman, who said they were adult men who "didn't have to be locked in". A makeup trailer was instead decorated as a jail cell, painted "Animal Crackers Hoosegow", and used as a relaxation space.
- Director Victor Heerman wanted most of the musical numbers dropped, including the play's finale with the brothers as 18th-century French courtiers romancing Madame du Barry. When the Marx Brothers, Morrie Ryskind and songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby objected, Heerman screened early footage whose enthusiastic reception won them over.
- Because music had to be recorded on set rather than dubbed later, a scene could not be cut mid-number without an abrupt musical break, so the music department chose which take was used. Director Victor Heerman recalled they once picked a take in which Groucho Marx had moved out of shot because "the clarinet sounded much better".
- In 1956 the film rights reverted to the original authors, playwrights George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind and songwriters Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, after Paramount failed to renegotiate. MCA later bought the film rights but could not secure the stage rights, so Animal Crackers went unseen in US cinemas and on television for years.
- After attending a bootleg screening in 1973, Marx Brothers enthusiast Steve Stoliar enlisted Groucho Marx for a re-release campaign. In February 1974 Groucho and his assistant Erin Fleming joined Stoliar's committee at UCLA before about 200 students, gathering over 2,000 petition signatures, and Universal Pictures then struck an agreement with the authors.
- Captain Spaulding outlived the film: author Glenn Mitchell called him "the most durable of Groucho's identities", and figures named Captain Spaulding later appeared in the 1970s TV series MASH and Rob Zombie's 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses. The name also turned up in Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg's 1939 song "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady".
