Reviews & Columns |
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
DVD Talk Forum |
|
Resources |
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
Columns
|
|
Monkey Business
Marilyn has but a small part in Monkey Business, a very amusing comedy where she's a cartoon-like front office cutie for lab chief Charles Coburn. She gets pinched, and chased around the test tubes by a bunch of lab-coated hooligan scientists, and is really in the picture to provide some a sexy threat to Ginger Rogers.
As in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, there are some pretty audacious verbal jokes. Caught examining Monroe's leg, because she's wearing some experimental synthetic stockings, Grant says, "Miss Lois was just showing me her acetates." Excitedly looking at a sports car, he offers, "I wish it had a beaver tail!", and Monroe shows up in the very next shot.
The show's obviously been included in this grouping because it's so much fun. It's especially interesting as a Howard Hawks movie - beyond the obvious similarity of the Cary Grant character to Hawk's own Bringing Up Baby. Critic Robin Wood wrote a compelling book on the director back in the late '60s, where he related Monkey Business to almost all of Hawks' recurring themes. The scientists are a typical Hawks male professional unit, like the fliers in Only Angels Have Wings or the professors in Ball of Fire, pros with a goal to achieve. But, thanks to Barnaby's chimp, they fall prey to the 'lure of irresponsibility' that in the more serious films requires the Hawks male unit to live by a code. Wood makes a great case for Monkey Business being a close cousin to, of all films, Scarface. Paul Muni's gangster seems to revert to a monkey-like Hyde character in that picture, and here Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers become physical and spiritual adolescents. The fun is in watching Cary Grant leer at hot-number Monroe, whose costume is more revealing even than ususal. Too bad he didn't catch her.
Fantasy fans claim Monkey Business as a science fiction film. The scientists in Grant's lab are comprised of the same actors from Hawks' The Thing of the year before, and a case can be made that the picture is a more coherent attempt at basically the same theme in Ken Russell's Altered States, 28 years later.
Like the previous boxed-set Diamond Collection, each of these discs has been digitally remastered and cleaned up as if the lives of Fox executives were depending on it. Each comes with a short restoration demo that, if anything, is more detailed than necessary. The demos range from informative to puzzling. Comparing the new transfer to a flat old library copy doesn't seem very fair, and the split-screen comparison frames often show empty parts of the frame instead of the key actors. But the effort put into these DVDs is nothing to sniff at.
For Audio, Monkey is listed as in 'English Stereo', which I think has to be a reprocessing trick.
Savant's comprehensive review of all 5 Diamond Collection 2 releases can be read at This URL.
|
|
Popular Reviews |
Sponsored Links |
|
Sponsored Links |
|
Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices
|