Word: chico
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...scenario of "Monkey Business" back in 1931, and the gags are still free of wrinkles. The plot, such as it is, has to do with four stowaways-the Marx Brothers-and how they manage to get off a luxury liner. The entire film is a chase, with Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo in front and the captain and his crew behind. The running stops from time to time to allow for the situations, which are about as hilarious as anything the four zanies have ever done...
Harpo, who is somewhat restrained in this flicker, has one or two excellent scenes. His pantomimic ability reaches its zenith in a sequence with Punch and Judy. Chico and Zeppo distribute themselves capably, though their comic action hardly approaches that of their more gifted brothers...
...students of Marxiana, even the uninspired face of Zeppe, the vestigal remnant, should help to recapture the "good old days" when the Brothers' only comedy competition was Cal Coolidge. Chico, who triples as peanut-vendor, confidential agent and Minister of War in Groucho's parlor cabinet, shows the verve and talent for pantomime that has, in later productions, been drowned in a flood of dialogue and cute piano-peeking. Margaret Dumont, accused by Groucho of looking like an old tenement, is the perfect foil through bedroom to parlor to bedroom. If S.J. Perelman did not invent the gags there...
...three charges into fumbling sleuths, who, finally, get their man, if not their woman. Such concern over villains and their "just deserts' cuts the Marx Brothers out of much of the fun, giving Sig Rumann-labelled for future generations as the typical National Socialist-as many scenes as Groucho, Chico and Harpo together. And unlike Margaret Dumont, the gracious Mrs. Rittenhouse of earlier Marx Brothers triumphs, Rumann is not content to remain a foil, and Groucho must contend with him as both a Nazi and a gag-stealer. Harpo, with a new wig and a slightly more fashionable, belt-trailing...
...Chico, whom Bob Benchley called the Annie Oakley of the piano, obliges on that instrument as pleasantly as ever. Harpo, who once was dangerously close to artiness, still has the best of his old wildness, plus new restraint, sadness and subtlety. He is used more centrally than before, and this is on the whole his finest performance. Groucho still carries the weight of the show and the woes of the world somewhere in the kidney region and walks, accordingly, with the famous sway-backed stoop. He still fires off his lines in the voice of a baying hound, with such...