Animal Crackers

In our box with less known (I say from my horizon) films by The Marx Brothers we consecrated this evening to 'Animal Crackers'.

In this film we find the three brothers being Captain Jeffrey T. Spalding, an 'African explorer' (Groucho); 'The Professor' (Harpo) and 'Signor Ravelli' (Chico).
At a party where the explorer is invited, a famous painting is stolen and a couple of people want to replace it by copies, one made by one of the guests, the other by another.
An 'investigation' takes place and of course it's the brothers who are in charge - or rather not in charge at all!

The mix of musical and 'talkie' is somewhat annoying as I can't see the point of having music in this film, the way it's done. Not only to 'show off' as the brothers always do, but also in order to move the story ahead. It doesn't work out well.
I don't know if it's the fact that these films are less known and not as good as 'the classics' ('A Day at the Races'; 'A Night at the Opera') or that they have aged in a bad way, but I don't reexperience the 'laughing paroxysm' I remember being subject to when seeing these films as a young man.
The part I remember best in this film - and that's a bit strange - is the song 'Hooray for Captain Spaulding'! Maybe because it later on became a theme song for the Marx Brothers.
If you don't want to see the whole film (above), you can take a look at the excerpt below: