Monkey Business

So what do we have here? A laugh out loud screwball comedy from 1952, starring Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Ginger Rogers, and Charles Coburn. It was directed by the legendary Howard Hawks,and has a screenplay by greats Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and I.A.L. Diamond...And there's more...20th Century Fox has restored this black and white comedy and has made a wonderful transfer to DVD, so we may enjoy all these immense talents more than 50 years later.

The film is a lot of fun, and the stars look like they had fun making it. And, you can blame all this fun on "Esther". Esther is a six month old chimp who mixes up a batch of youth serum and dumps it in the water cooler at the lab of the absent minded researcher Dr. Barnaby Fulton(Grant). When Fulton and wife Edwina(Rogers), get a powerful dose of this formula, it's anything goes, as they become youthfully exuberant and a bit on the mischievious side(okay, okay, more than a bit). The more they drink...the younger they act. Fulton's boss(Coburn)is trying desperatley to market this miracle and secretary Laurel(Monroe), adds to all this fun as only Marilyn can do with her mere presence.And yes...Ginger does a little hoofing as well!

A fabulous restoration makes it all the more enjoyable. The full screen picture(1.33:1/academy ratio) and black and white images are sharp and clear. There are a few instances when that rainbow thing is happening, you may notice it on Cary's suit or tie, but not often and it no way interferes with the enjoyment of this film. The audio gives you the choice of Stereo or Mono, and there are subtitles in English and Spanish.
You can also view a restoration comparasion and there's a still gallery with wonderful photos.

What we have here is a 5 star package deal for anyone who loves old Hollywood, for anyone who loves to laugh, and for anyone who is young...at heart!...enjoy....Laurie

So says Dr. Barnaby Fulton to his loving wife Edwina. In fact the search for a youth formula is the commission he is working on at Oxley Chemicals, with the help of his assistant Jerome Keating. So far, he's gotten a 23% efficiency rating out of the formula, until in a serendipitous moment, he hits upon heat as the answer to make it 100% efficient.

Now, we've all heard of the story of many monkeys typing up gibberish until only one of them comes up with Hamlet. Well, in yet another totally bizarre and random moment, Esther, one of the experimental chimpanzees in Fulton's lab, unwittingly creates a formula that's more effective than Fulton's. And the cruel joke is that the chimp dumps her formula into the water cooler. Meanwhile, first Barnaby, then Edwina, take Esther's formula, thinking it's Barnaby's, and they regress back in age, both to college age. Yes, they seem livelier, whooping it up, and acting youthful. But their outrageous behaviour causes consternation among their bewildered colleagues, particularly Mr. Oxley, who's simultaneously pleased and concerned that the formula's working. And guess how the Fultons act when they unwittingly take a larger dose of the formula?

Some of the things are very dated, such as the sports coat and haircut that's reminiscent of college boys in the late 1920's. The open top sports car is a beaut, though.

As for Marilyn, who plays Oxley's secretary, Lois Laurel, she doesn't have much to do, but the one feature that's emphasized are her legs. She raises her skirt to Fulton to show how well the non-rip stockings are working, and when she's sent to find Fulton at the Ford dealer, from beneath a billboard, we see a pair of legs walking. When Barnaby calls out her name, the legs stop in reaction. Interesting technique there. And Edwina says of Laurel, who's described as "half infant" by Barnaby, "not the half that's visible." And yes, her typing is so bad, her boss hands her a paper and says "Find someone to type this."

Cary Grant comes off well as Barnaby, playing the myopic absent-minded professor to a tee. When Ginger Rogers (Edwina) lets her hair down, shades of what made her glow during her Fred Astaire days come through, but it's clear that she hasn't aged that well with time.

The voice telling Cary Grant, "Not yet, Cary" at the beginning is none other than director Howard Hawks, who'd direct Marilyn in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, in which Charles Coburn (Oxley) also appears as Sir Henry Beatman. And the young boy in the cowboy hat with the low speaking voice is George "Foghorn" Winston, who has a small role as Henry Spofford III in Blondes.

An average light comedy that's good as a time-killer, enjoyable if it's not taken too seriously. But in going back to that opening quote, it amazes me that no matter how adult adults seem to be, the maladjustment and mere idiocy is something that even most of us adults never grow out of. If that's what makes us young at heart, that's just human nature. I suppose that means that if we're as young as we feel, that it's all in the mind, well, that's what matters in the end. Youth is one thing, immaturity is quite another.