Monkey Business (1952)

Waste of time

How sad is this?

Awesome Movie

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It's worth seeing even for those only a few seconds from the 14th minute, when Marilyn shows us the most beautiful ass in the world, through the dress she has on her, going out of her boss's office, just two minutes after she showed Cary Grant one of her super sexy legs, in the front room of the office. If you're not happy with what you've just been seen, wait until the 31st minute, when you'll see her laughing in the sport car driven by the same but transformed Cary Grant. Have you reached the 33rd minute? Marilyn in a swimsuit? What do you say? Don't you want to stop time forever? Or, at least to be born again, beside her, at the swimming pool? Well, that's what it is, you have to be thankful with just that, the rest they try very hard, in a childish way, to make us laugh. They did not succeed, not with me. But I will watch it again, anytime, only for MM.

I guess there's a fine line between screwball comedy and slapstick. This one came down a bit more on the slapstick side once it got going and left me somewhat unsatisfied, even with the caliber of players in the lead roles. Cary Grant was a veteran of these kinds of pictures, but for a better definition of 'screwball', you'd have to check him out in "Bringing Up Baby" or "His Gal Friday", both from a decade earlier.Something occurred to me as I watched this and I never mentioned it before, but there's always a first time. Have you ever noticed, no matter how big the star or their celebrity appeal, it all seems to go by the boards when they step into a 1950's era kitchen and the appliances make things feel so outdated. That's the first thing that hit me when the Fulton's (Grant and Ginger Rogers) entered their home for the first time. Not that it bothers me because that's just the way things were, but it's something of a shocker when you see it today considering all the modern gadgetry we have available now. Just an observation.Now Marilyn Monroe, it didn't help her real life persona to be cast in a role like this because she had to carry that dumb blonde personality around all throughout her short career. If she had gotten more roles like the her character Roslyn Taber in "The Misfits", well, who knows, her self esteem might have taken her on an entirely different course. As it is, we'll never know.So getting back to the story, we come to find out that at least in this case, the old fountain of youth is not all that it's cracked up to be, especially when monkeyshines are involved. Speaking of which, I wish the chimp who performed here was credited for the role, it had the best facial expressions of any I've ever seen, and that would include Cheeta from all those Tarzan flicks of old. You know, Cheeta lived to the ripe old age of seventy nine, so when Barnaby described 'Rudolph' as being eighty four, the writers wouldn't have been too far off the mark. But then again, they had 'Esther' on screen, so who would ever know?After all the hi-jinx, the story finally comes around to the message we probably all were waiting for, that is, the idea expressed in my summary line delivered by Barnaby Fulton. Another way of expressing it would have been the way Barnaby replied to Miss Laurel (Monroe) when she asked him if his motor was running - "Is yours?"

Comedy classic directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant as a research scientist who drinks a formula mixed by a monkey that makes him act younger. Soon other people are drinking it and reverting to a younger state as well, including his wife Ginger Rogers and sexy secretary Marilyn Monroe. It's a delightfully funny romp reminiscent of the screwball comedy films Hawks made in the 1930s and 1940s. Grant, Rogers, and Monroe are all great. Charles Coburn steals many scenes. He would re-team with Hawks and Monroe the following year in another classic, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Monkey Business was the fifth and final teaming of Hawks and Grant. They definitely went out on a high note. As for Marilyn, who is often advertised today as the star of the film, she makes the most of her supporting part and shows that she was more than just a pretty face or curvy figure. Definitely recommended.

I would have liked this movie were it not for Ginger Rogers. She is so painfully annoying from start to finish, I wanted to scream. After consuming her first dose of the formula... Oh what an absolute disaster. She is whiny and irritating to the point that I wonder how any man agreed to marry her in the first place. Had I not known that she was such a brilliant dancer before this movie, I would say that her skills in this area are clumsy and embarrassing. I would have been laughing as an innocent bystander watching her gallop around the dance floor. She only seems like a drunken fool rolling around on the floor then weeping before locking her husband out of the honeymoon suite she insisted on staying in. And, to top it all off, we find out that she called her ex beau (who she continues to contact throughout the movie to arouse jealousy) accusing her husband of abuse. All of this disaster is lightly sloughed off by her the next day as angry reporters, mother and ex boyfriend are infiltrating their house and interrogating her husband. Yet, he doesn't even seem in the slightest bit bothered with her. How unrealistic. I cannot believe this garbage actually made it through the screening process of production.