Monkey Business
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Actor: Cary Grant, Charles Coburn, Ginger Rogers, Harry Carter, Marilyn MonroeBrand: MONROE,MARILYN
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-05-14
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Monkey Business
DVD Review: Screwball Retread from Howard Hawks Boasts Strong Talent But Few Peaks
Summary: 3 Stars
The shadow of Howard Hawks' earlier screwball classic, 1938's Bringing Up Baby, hovers over this equally inane 1952 farce like a dark, foreboding cloud. In his fifth and final collaboration with Hawks, Cary Grant plays a very similar character to the bespectacled, absent-minded paleontologist he played in the earlier film. This time, he plays a bespectacled, absent-minded pharmaceutical scientist named Barnaby Fulton who is on the verge of discovering a fountain-of-youth elixir in his laboratory when a hyperactive chimpanzee seizes the formula and pours it in the water cooler (thus the movie's title). The inevitable comic shenanigans ensue. While there are sporadic laughs throughout, the film's underlying problem has less to do with the preposterous storyline (scripted by the veteran trio of Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, and Billy Wilder's constant partner I.A.L. Diamond) than it does with the uneven pacing and a palpable lack of the genuine manic energy that marked the earlier film as well as Hawks' other great Grant film, 1940's His Girl Friday.
Much of the comedy comes from how Barnaby and his wife Edwina revert back to adolescence once they drink the elixir. He starts acting like a twenty-year-old - getting a crewcut, wearing a loud plaid jacket and driving a sports car convertible at breakneck speed. What's worse, he has his boss' curvaceous secretary Miss Laurel join him for the hi-jinks, and she is more than willing to accommodate. Edwina sees the after-effects and drinks the elixir herself as a test subject. She reverts to her high school years and entices her old flame Hank Entwhistle to believe she wants a divorce. Meanwhile, all hell breaks loose at the laboratory when everyone drinks from the water cooler and reverts to a second childhood. Barnaby and Edwina end up throwing paint on each other at which point Barnaby plots to seek revenge on Hank whom he thinks is running off with Edwina. It all ends in pretty ridiculous fashion with the inevitable results.
At this point in his career, the 48-year-old Grant could sleepwalk through a role like this. Fortunately, he is better than that, though the devil-may-care energy he had in "Baby" and "Friday" is missing until he reverts to his childhood. A brassy personality by nature, Ginger Rogers seems strangely restrained as Edwina until she moves dexterously into the childish manner she used to better effect in The Major and the Minor. Hawks likes to recycle bits from his earlier movies, for instance, the contrived scene where Edwina wears a backless apron over a black slip much to Barnaby's chagrin when Hank comes over. This is a virtual replay of the country club scene where Grant inadvertently rips the back of Katharine Hepburn's gown. It's just not funny this time.
Charles Coburn plays his blustery self as Barnaby's merciless boss, while Hugh Marlowe as Hank repeats the pompous ignorance he displayed so well as the naïve playwright in All About Eve. As the vacuous Miss Laurel, Marilyn Monroe has a smallish role and is relegated to some silly lines to emphasize her dumb-blonde character. However, when she joins Grant for his juvenile delinquent escapade, whether on roller skates or poolside in a form-fitting swimsuit, she is so beautiful and vibrantly alive that her future seems completely assured in this early role. There are three extra features on the 2002 DVD - the original theatrical trailer, a twenty-picture stills gallery with some production shots of Monroe, and a brief restoration comparison details the work done to restore the film back to its original quality.
Description of Monkey Business
Comedy about a chemist who discovers that a chimpanzee in his lab has invented a potent rejuvenation drug.Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: NR
Release Date: 6-JAN-2004
Media Type: DVD
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