Animal Crackers

Animal Crackers is a 1930 comedy built around the Marx Brothers. Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding, a celebrated explorer and hunter, has returned from Africa and is the guest of honour at a lavish weekend party hosted by the wealthy society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse. The gathering is meant to show off a valuable painting that the philanthropist Chandler has brought back from Europe, but the canvas disappears during the evening and a poor copy takes its place. Spaulding sets out to recover it, assisted by his secretary Horatio Jamison, while tangling with the anarchic musician Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his odd companion known only as The Professor.

The film was directed by Victor Heerman from a screenplay by Morrie Ryskind and George S. Kaufman, and it was made and released by Paramount in 1930, the year after the brothers' first feature, The Cocoanuts. Each performer plays to type: Groucho Marx as the pompous, fast-talking Spaulding, Chico Marx as Ravelli, Harpo Marx as the silent Professor, and Zeppo Marx as Jamison, with Lillian Roth and Margaret Dumont among the supporting cast.

On TMDB the film holds a rating of 6.9 out of 10 from 272 votes, a modest but solid figure that suggests enduring interest in the Marx Brothers' early sound work. At 98 minutes, it is a music-filled comedy shaped by stage material the troupe had already performed, and it preserves the vaudeville rhythm that carried over into their films.