Customer Reviews

Monkey Business

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I found "Monkey Business" very enjoyable and interesting. I had trouble putting the book down. It reads very quickly and is not dull or academic in the least.

The one drawback I found was that the book is not as focused as Louvish's bio of W. C. Fields, but then here he is following five people as opposed to one.

Still, this was a very good book. I liked the way Louvish challenged some old stories about the Marx Brothers, and I liked the way he made a case for Chico being the chief "behind the scenes" brother in business matters. His assessment of the films seemed quite fair to me, and I found it interesting that the Marxes (or their writers) originally intended "Duck Soup" to be more political, and that they made it after plans to film "Of Thee I Sing" fell through.

Still, this is perhaps not the best "first book to read" on the Marx Brothers. I would nominate Joe Adamson's "Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo" for that.

An excellent book not only for Louvish's analysis of their films but for showing how their homelife at turn of the century New York influenced their humor. The author highlights the personality differences in each brother: Groucho was penny-pinching, cynical, and yes grouchy; Unlike his cinematic woman-chasing (literally) image, Harpo was happily-married and monogamous; and Chico was an inveterate gambler and womanizer.The author does a good job of highlighting their hilarous off-screen antics; of particular value is his recounting of their cruel but always hilarious practical jokes on the stiff and dignified Margaret Dumont.

And I must say that this book of the same title is right up there too. I thought Simon Louvish did an excellent job of digging up the truth on the Marxian tales that have swirled around for many, many years. His research of the ancestral roots of Minnie and Sam "Frenchy" Marx are impeccable.....and Louvish's way of putting the "ages" of the brothers in their proper timeframe is first rate. I think he captured each brother perfectly. I was impressed at his case for giving Chico a hell of lot more credit in steering the brothers to superstardom. Chico was a go-getter, just like his mother Minnie, and I was happy to see Chico portrayed as something more than just the gambling, womanizing, loose cannon type of a guy we all know about (or thought we knew about). That's not to say Chico wasn't like that, it's just good to hear something else about him for a change (I'd kill to have the mathematical mind that guy had!). Harpo is always just the Harpo we all know (just like in "HARPO SPEAKS!") and love. He definitely marched to a beat of a different drummer (Louvish captures that perfectly), Harpo was his own man to say the least. That's a good thing. Groucho, is displayed (like usual) as cantankerous, moody and insulting (well, this IS Groucho we're talking about!). But Louvish gets into the reasons WHY Groucho was that way (let's just say insecurities MIGHT have played a small part in Groucho's disposition).

For me, reading of Zeppo's burden of being so much younger and feeling he was always an afterthought is sad. To be bearing the middle name of his deceased eldest brother, you have to feel some sympathy towards the poor guy. Zep's talents lie elsewhere, as subsequent chapters explain. Louvish's use of prime Marxist dialogue is superb, and he really outdid himself in research at the Libary of Congress, finding several vintage manuscripts just lying there waiting to have their moment in print.......speaking of moments, I was really intrigued by the true story of Margaret Dumont. This woman managed to pull off the ultimate lifelong-practical joke on GROUCHO of all people. Read the book to see what I'm talking about. Everything you'd want to know about the Marxes is here, and there's so much irony in the stories, it's mind boggling. What really got me was the sad way each of their lives ended. None of them (except maybe Gummo) just went along peacefully. Chico died of arteriosclerosis, with practically nothing to show for all the glory years in the movies, Harpo had a heart attack during open-heart surgery (on his 28th wedding anniversary no less), Zeppo died of lung cancer. Groucho's surviving relatives' feud with Erin Fleming (even after Grouch was gone) was a sad closing to an amazing, but sometimes painful life. But it's the laughter that kept the brothers (and brought all of us) together. That's what this book celebrates more than anything. The genius of their comedy, their anarchistic style, they brought THEMSELVES to us, the movie goer. That's why almost 80 years later, we're still interested in them, because there was no one else like them, probably never will be. But it's the legacy of laughter they left behind, the legacy that Louvish writes about so beautifully. First rate book, get this one.

Simon Louvish follows up his excellent biography of W. C. Fields with this ground-breaking study of the Marx Brothers. As with the Fields biography, Louvish demythologizes the story of the Marxes and gives us Marx fans a lot more information to digest and enjoy. Fans have tended to accept the early stories of Marx family life as carved in stone; Louvish shows how the real story differs and does it with loving respect rather than the harshness of a debunker. In addition to the Marxes, Louvish also takes a few sidebar trips into the lives of the not so well known supporting players, such as Margaret Dumont, whose life was draped in legend. Well researched and well written. As to the criticism of those who think his writing reflects too much of the Marx style of comedy, I can only reply that no one seemed to mind when Joe Adamson did the same thing in his landmark study on the Marx Brothers films, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo. I think this style of writing goes with the turf, so to speak, and in any case its annoyance factor is negligible compared to the rewards of his research. Highly recommded for any serious as well as casual Marx fan.

Louvish's comprehensive biography is intelligent, solidly researched (with careful notes, unlike the new Kanfer bio of Groucho), and written with warmth and affection. Where others have accepted mythologies about the lives of the boys, Louvish has dug for facts and unearthed all sorts of tantalizing details and contradictions: he is particularly strong on the family's European roots and their vaudeville career, and he offers the most detailed and lovingly iconoclastic biographical sketch of the implacable and heretofore mysterious Margaret Dumont.

One wishes that his analyses of Marxian comedy were sharper and deeper, and at times the British author seems to have only a slippery grasp of the American pop culture idiom; there are references he just doesn't get. Also, the chatty tone of his writing and his conversational interjections can be distracting.

Overall, though, this is the best Marx book in years--it is trustworthy and enjoyable. Buy it, and tell them AGrouchoMarxist sent you!

The massive comprehensive research Mr. Louvish did for this book is truly impressive. Not only do we get huge amounts of biographical information on the five main subjects, we also get a lot of information on the generations that came immediately before. Some readers might feel all of that information is superfluous, but you can't really understand a person unless you know where the person comes from. I really enjoyed all of this background information. Another highlight was all of the research into their vaudeville years, as well as how for once Gummo and Zeppo don't get the short end of the stick. I also loved the pictures, but wished there had been more, particularly showing the boys with their own families. That would've been a really nice touch, given how much information we got on their wives and children. Another plus was the information on baby Manfred, whom many researchers and even members of the Marx family long believed was apocryphal. Based on the information given, I was able to submit his burial location and the brief biographical information and cause of death to the Find-a-Grave website and will know where to find his grave if I'm ever in the Brooklyn cemetery where he's buried.

I wasn't as bothered by the writing style by others have been, but I agree that it could get a little overly cutesy. Encorporating such a style once in awhile is fine, but sometimes it seems overdone, and you don't really need to write in a funny style when the people you're writing about are already funny enough on their own. I also thought their post-1937 films, for the most part, were given amazingly short schrift. Just because generally speaking most people don't hold them in high regard doesn't mean they're only worth a few pages each. Maybe it's time to give these later films a critical reevaluation and see what is good in them instead of automatically saying they're so bad they don't even deserve the same detailed treatment their first seven films deserve. And I agree, for all of Mr. Louvish's massive research on the Marx family, it seems baffling that he couldn't go to the pretty minor effort to look up the meaning of some of these American references and slang words that he admits he doesn't know the meaning of, instead of saying, for example, "No, I have no idea what a college widow is either." I also noticed a few other minor errors; for example, Mr. Louvish states that Harpo is the one who steals Maurice Chevalier's passport in 'Monkey Business,' when Zeppo was actually the one who did that.

Overall, this is a very engrossing entertaining book, although small things like the ones detailed above prevent me from giving it a full 5 stars.

Writing a new book about the Marx Brothers is a tough job simply because, unless someone can unearth a treasure chest full of Marx memorabilia, there is little left to be found. True, the Marx Brothers have been well documented by many past efforts, but many of these books rely heavily on folklore, old memories reminiscing, documents generated by the studio, or worse, from the mischievous minds of the Marxes themselves! Simon Louvich does a wonderful and thorough job of providing facts, rather than blindly supporting the legendary stories.

For instance; The Marx Brothers always claimed that their father Frenchy was the worst tailor in New York City. The Marx history is riddled with tales of poorly-cut jackets, ill-fitting pants, angry customers and no repeat business. Louvish had the initiative to investigate this story by looking at turn-of-the-century census records of their neighbors to see their occupations. Surprize! Their neighbors were butchers, store owners, and other occupations well above the poverty line, suggesting that Frenchy could not have been so bad a tailor as to live in a decent neighborhood. Louvish's initiative has also led to the unearthing of previously lost scripts of vaudeville routines by checking with the Library of Congress for copies submitted at the beginning of the century for copyright protection. In the book there are many more examples of the very creative detective work performed by Mr Louvish.

Most complaints of this book stem from the writing style Louvish chose to use for the book; He uses Marx quotes to pepper the book with a humorous, familiar tone, which seems to bother some readers. I appreciated the style, mainly because biographies can tend to be quite dry, and Marx Brother fans repeatedly use the same quotes in their shared conversations as well. This led me to take Mr Louvish for a full-scale Marx Brothers fan and the chatty tendency confirmed to me that he is a friend, interested in my favorite comedy team and speaking to me as other fans do. A very brave risk on his part, popularly misconstrued, but hit home with me.

This book is the closest factual account of the Marxes that we'll probably ever see. It's well worth the journey.

Simon Louvish's new book has earned an honored place in my collection of Marx Brothers books and memorabilia. I have been a fan of the Marx Brothers for 25 years and have read nearly every book written by or about them. I thought I knew all there was to know and was expecting this to be nothing but a rehash of things I had read before. Instead I find that Mr. Louvish has carefully researched his subject and shares many new insights based on his research while also debunking (or at least challenging) many of the old Marxian legends. In my opinion, this book is not for the beginner in the world of the Marx Brothers. Mr. Louvish assumes that the reader already has knowledge of their films and of the many myths he works to debunk. If you are a new fan and want to learn more, start with "Groucho and Me" or "Harpo Speaks" and come back to this book later. If you are already well acquainted with the Marx Brothers, I think that you will be very pleased with Mr. Louvish's work.

Louvish's detailed biography of the MB's is very good indeed. Starting in mid action, sympathetic, never genuflecting , the book goes on to describe what became of the Marx Brothers. Humorwise the author isn't trying to be the sixth Marx Brother any more than he's trying to be fourth Beastie Boy, the second Maureen Lipman, or the fifth Beatle. He's just trying to set the scene, which I feel will add to the book's value as time goes on, because that's what good history is.
Of all the secondary Marx(i.e. surname-not-Marx) material I have read, this is the one I have the most affection for, mainly because it is not trying to be definitive or exhaustive or curatorial, and yet strangely is better at all three than anything else Marx-related I've read in the past. Even if you've never seen a MB movie, you will probably find plenty here to amuse.

Simon Louvish has done an outstanding job of presenting a fun, readable and informative account of the Marx Bros. New information to me included thoughts on the evidence that all of the brothers falsified their ages throughout their lives as well as secrets of Margaret Dumont revealed at last. There is also (as one would expect) a great deal of the story which has appeared in numerous other books and articles. However, Mr. Louvish presents it all in an entertaining way, making this book enjoyable on all fronts.

Monkey Business deserves a place on the bookshelf of any devoted fan of the Marx Brothers as well as those only casually interested in their works and careers.