Over the years of watching movies to review for The Legionnaire, my note taking has involved.  At first, I used to take an actual notepad in the theaters, my phone providing a dim glow by which to write.  Seeing this, one of my friends bought me a pen with a low red shine near the tip.  That worked well until the battery powering the light rain out of energy.  I then switched to jotting down things directly in my phone, turning the brightness down as much as my eyes could tolerate.  This sufficed for a while, though a few times during this interval I had to deal with angry people yelling at me for this set up.  Most recently, I switched to a Kindle Scribble, and I am not sure why I did not go digital sooner.  It is convenient and I love using it.  Watching Animal Crackers (1930) robbed me of the satisfaction of seeing my words appear with computerized ease because I finished the film having recorded zero thoughts.  Instead, I had to settle for the God-given joy of watching a Marx Brothers movie.  Truly, God giveth, and He taketh away.

Unsurprisingly, the wealthy heiress Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) is set to welcome a group of Animal Crackers to her palatial estate.  Allow me to explain.  Broadly speaking, being a production by the aforementioned comedic group, Dumont’s character is typical for many of these films.  The title explains the behavior of the people who are about to arrive.  Okay, perhaps noted art collector Roscoe Chandler (Louis Sorin) is not as crazy as the others.  By “others,” I mean Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx) and his entourage, who are returning from a highly publicized exploration of Africa.  Mrs. Rittenhouse is hosting a weekend party to celebrate Captain Spaulding’s return, and Roscoe is displaying a rare painting he recently acquired in Captain Spaulding’s honor.  Also attending the festivities is Mrs. Whitehead (Margaret Irving) and her friend, Grace Carpenter (Kathryn Reece).  Mrs. Whitehead is a bit jealous of Mrs. Rittenhouse, and between Grace and Mrs. Whitehead they hatch a scheme to take some of the prestige out of the proceedings.  Grace had copied the priceless piece that is about to be unveiled, and suggests that they switch the original with hers.  Mrs. Rittenhouse’s head butler, Hives (Robert Greig), once worked for Mrs. Whitehead, and so our two pranksters have an inside man in pulling off the stunt.  There are two others at this gathering, though, that have the same idea.  They are young lovers John Parker (Hal Thompson) and Mrs. Rittenhouse’s daughter, Arabella Rittenhouse (Lillian Roth).  Their scheme is somewhat more honorable.  They want to get married, but as an iterant painter who barely makes a wage, John does not feel he can provide for an heiress.  Instead, Arabella concocts a plan wherein they put John’s version of the same picture in place of the one on display.  This way, when it is revealed, they can let everyone in on the caper and show off John’s talents as an artist.  Before they can pull off the job on their own, two of Captain Spaulding’s associates enter the room.  They are the Professor (Harpo Marx) and Signor Emanuel Ravelli (Chico Marx).  The Professor is chasing (one might say harassing if he ever caught her) after a poor young woman, with Signor Ravelli closely following.  Once these newcomers finally settle down, Arabella convinces them to make the swap for her.  They agree, and on the following night (which is dark and stormy, of course), they make their move.  Because this is a comedy, their theft is interrupted by Mrs. Rittenhouse and Captain Spaulding, who wander into the room while the electricity has been interrupted. Nonetheless, they are able to do the deed.  Later, Hives does the same thing with Grace’s piece.  As such, on the appointed evening, and on the heels of the inevitable Marx Brothers musical interlude, Mrs. Rittenhouse invites her guests into the room where she draws back the curtains to reveal a work of art.  It is Roscoe who promptly spots the fake, which draws a gasp from those present.  It leads to a search of the premises by the guests, but nothing turns up, including from those who actually thought of replacing the original in the first place.  Given that the Professor has been stealing everything on which he can get his hands, Mrs. Whitehead suspects that he is the culprit.  It also does not help that in the morning, she sees him sleeping on a bench outside using one copy as a blanket, and the other as a pillow.  With Hives assistance, Mrs. Whitehead manages to incapacitate the Professor, though he wakes up just as quickly when the girl walks past.  This is all proving to be too much for Mrs. Rittenhouse, who has decided to call the police.  When they get there, they are not much use in uncovering the thief or recovering the painting.  Indeed, they are about to arrest John, much to Arabella’s horror, who tries to take the blame upon herself.  This is when Captain Spaulding’s set enter the room, and the Professor is revealed as having taken them all.  Roscoe identifies the original, and they are about to take the Professor into custody. However, he pulls out a bug spray can and starts indiscriminately shooting into the air.  Everyone is knocked out but him, but instead of escape, he decides to dose himself, lying down next to the woman he had been chasing the entire time.

It is difficult to describe a Marx Brothers movie, and Animal Crackers is no different.  They are full of musical interludes (actually, they are basically musicals) meant to showcase the group’s talents in that field.  The other interruptions to the plot are the jokes they tell, which play off whatever is going on in the plot, but do nothing to advance the story.  I am fine with all of this, but you may have noticed that I said practically nothing about Catholicism as you might expect from a reviewer like me.  That is way my notes remained blank throughout the runtime.  Indeed, I am still unsure what to say about the film from a Catholic perspective, at least in terms of its specific content.  Most of the material is acceptable, with only a few somewhat inappropriate one-liners sprinkled in occasionally.  This is one of the great things about watching a production from 1930: you do not have to worry too much that what you are seeing could be an attack on your soul.  More broadly speaking, it is okay to laugh as a Christian.  I take what I do seriously, and I truly believe that what we see in movies can be more dangerous for our spiritual well-being than we might want to admit.  Again, this is why the era in which this one was made is great if you are in the mood for a good and innocent (mostly) laugh.  Alternatively, many in a modern audience would look at a production like this and not connect to it.  What is that, black-and-white film, they might say?  And Groucho is the king of what we today would label as “dad jokes.”  I have increasingly found that this label is applied to comedic fare that is not provocative or raunchy in some way.  It seems like we feel we need to be dirty in order to be funny, and such looseness can lead to sin.  To be clear, Jesus laughed.  He was fully human.  At the same time, being fully Divine, He would like to see us avoid that which separates us from Him.

Are there dirty jokes in Animal Crackers?  Yes, there are a couple.  Does that make the movie raunchy?  Absolutely not.  Until I see a Marx Brothers movie that I do not enjoy, those descriptors will likely be applied to all of them.  Their comedy should be appreciated.