Product Details

• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000EWDIQC
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #101,025 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very family friendly and sure to please everyone, April 16, 2009

By	Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Mrs. Rittenhouse (played by Margaret Dumont) wants to make her splash in high-society by hosting the greatest party ever. She succeeds in getting African explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx) to attend, and for a famous Beauregard painting to be unveiled in her house. However, with Signor Emanuel Ravelli (Chico Marx) and The Professor (Harpo Marx) there, hilarity soon ensues. To make matters worse, the painting is stolen, and the Marx Brothers turn the investigation into a three-ring circus.

I love the Marx Brothers, with their goofy and irrepressible humor. Indeed, they are so funny that I succeeded in converting my son into a Marx Brothers' fan as well! Animal Crackers is a very funny movie, with lots of that great off-beat humor.

Indeed, did you know that this is the very first Marx Brothers movie? It came out in 1930, and features such great songs as "Hello, I Must Be Going" and "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" which became Groucho Marx's theme. This movie is very family friendly and sure to please everyone. We love this movie, and give it our highest recommendations.

So, pop some popcorn, put this disc in your DVD player, and crack up to the antics of the funniest men ever to come out of Hollywood - the Marx Brothers!

5.0 out of 5 stars My personal favorite among the Brothers films,, June 6, 2009

By	Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Not as polished as DUCK SOUP, this is nonetheless my favorite Marx Brothers film. This was their second movie; the first filmed in Hollywood, and records their final stage production. So in many ways, this is a transition film. ANIMAL CRACKERS and their first film, COCONUTS, made in 1929, also share the distinction of being perhaps the two oldest sound films that are still widely watched.
The film is not perfect. There are many dead moments scattered throughout the film, though only when one of the Brothers was not onscreen. And because sound recording was still in its infancy, the sound is pretty dreadful. The voices all sound somewhat flat and thin, but Groucho, Harpo, and Chico more than make up for it. And for once, we shouldn't leave out Zeppo. Groucho and Zeppo have a great exchange where Groucho dictates a letter to be sent to his lawyer. Actually, Zeppo was very, very talented in his own right, but with the three older brothers having staked out their own forms of madness, he was left as the straight man. On Broadway, Groucho came down sick, and Zeppo put on Groucho's clothes, put on a grease paint mustache and eyebrows, grabbed a cigar, and no one knew it wasn't Groucho.

ANIMAL CRACKERS is actually an outstanding showcase for all the brothers. Chico and Harpo team up for some of their best skits (including an utterly hysterical game of bridge), each has some great solo moments, and Groucho has dozens of his best and most famous lines. In fact, the movie probably contains half of the famous lines that we associate with Groucho, including the song that became his signature, "Hooray for Captain Spaulding." And Margaret Dumont is amazingly unflappable as Groucho's love (?) interest.

Although is easily my favorite Marx Brother film, it is usually ranked somewhat below some of their other films. One reason for this lies in the fact that the film was not shown for several decades following its initial release because of a copyright dispute.

When the Marx Brothers performed ANIMAL CRACKERS on Broadway, one night Harpo was running late when he reached the theater. Changing quickly, he inadvertently left off his knee length underwear he normally put under his tear-away tux for his first scene. At the point where the butler is supposed to take his cape, and the entire tux pulls away, Harpo was left there standing in only his jock strap. While he rushed offstage to put on the rest of his outfit, Groucho calmly adlibbed, "Come back tomorrow and he'll take the rest off."

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the funniest movies of all time!!!, August 16, 2008

By	uncavan "uncavan" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This is Groucho and the boys at their best, before Irving Thalberg made them rich and formulaic. Funny to all generations, even my 4th grade autistic students fell out of their chairs laughing!