The Marx Brothers return for more craziness in “Monkey Business”. Unlike “Duck Soup” and “Horse Feathers”, people don’t mention this one as much but I enjoyed about as much as those two movies.

The Marx Brothers are causing more trouble and this time their stowaways on a cruise ship. There is no real plot as such but just a series of scenes that are excuses for the Marx Brothers to annoy as many people on the ship as possible. If you’ve seen any of the other movies with the Marx Brothers, you will know exactly what sort-of shenanigans to expect.

Groucho Marx is funny as always with his quick wit and great one-liners and I guess maybe I’ve grown to find the other brothers more tolerable; although he doesn’t do anything particularly funny, I didn’t mind the scenes with Harpo so much this time. Chico is mildly amusing as usual. Zeppo again plays the straight man so don’t expect any laughs from him. It’s amazing how poor their chemistry is (maybe that explains why they have so few scenes where they are all together) considering they are real-life brothers. The other characters are all simply there for the Marx Brothers to irritate with their whacky hijinks.

An interesting piece of trivia is that this film was banned in Ireland until 2000 over fears that it would cause anarchy among the public but for some reason, none of the other Marx Brothers films were banned. There are some genuinely clever scenes here such as one near the beginning where the four brothers are hiding in some barrels. If you like the Marx Brothers movies, this is worth checking out and for those looking for an old-fashioned comedy could easily get a kick out of this too. If you’ve never seen the Marx Brothers, I don’t think it really matters where you start as long as you don’t do what I did and watch “Love Happy” first.