Cinema 1930: ANIMAL CRACKERS : The Marx Brothers

Animal Crackers

(Paramount). Groucho is the one with the pointed mustache and glasses who pulls most of the wisecracks. Harpo is the one in the curled peruke whose zany glee is never accompanied by a syllable. Chico is the tough one. Zeppo is handsome and does little. They are the Marxes, the funniest brothers in the U. S. In this adaptation of their musicomedy, a better piece than their first talkie (The Cocoanuts), the plot about a stolen painting is brought scornfully to light once in a while, and then merely to prove that they had a plot to ignore. Romantic songs and parades of young women are reduced to a minimum. For an hour and a half the Marx brothers air their crazy jumble of satiric irrelevancies.