Thoughts on Monkey Business (1952)
Monkey Business was the perfect film to establish Marilyn Monroe’s screen persona; it wonderfully exemplifies what made her so utterly tantalizing. Her beautiful, youthful glow charged viewers with a heightened sensation of attraction and awe. The key word I just expressed is “youthful”, as it is youth that people are latching onto when they are entranced by her. She creates a youthful sense of wonder; that tingling feeling of a first crush mixed with the intimidating perception of a goddess.
This is all appropriate, because Howard Hawks’s 1952 screwball comedy Monkey Business has everything to do with youth—or, more accurately, the absence of age. The film is about a scientist who discovers a serum that infuses you with youthful instincts and urges. Once you take it, you behave as if you were a child again. Yet the film is more sophisticated than just being a comment on how we yearn to feel young again and escape the straining pressures of age, change, and inevitable death. The film works its premise so expertly into its genre; its farcical nature being a perfect platform for its actors to showcase their boundless talents.
The film has as much to do with comedy itself than its more serious implications regarding the allure and danger of nostalgia and recklessness; it reveals how life is at its funniest when we’re at our funniest and most careless; when we’re young and free and have so little to lose and understand about the lives we lead. Barnaby and Edwina’s marriage has reached a point where they’re both reminded of how much freer and impassioned they were at a younger age. Barnaby’s absent-mindedness and incompetence generates his desire to return to a time in his life where he did not have to worry about being mindful and competent at much of anything. His main issue is that he does not realize that he is still the same person he always was, regardless of his age. Just because he knows more does not fundamentally change him. As Barnaby states in the film’s touching final moment, “you’re old only when you forget you’re young.”
This is all appropriate, because Howard Hawks’s 1952 screwball comedy Monkey Business has everything to do with youth—or, more accurately, the absence of age. The film is about a scientist who discovers a serum that infuses you with youthful instincts and urges. Once you take it, you behave as if you were a child again. Yet the film is more sophisticated than just being a comment on how we yearn to feel young again and escape the straining pressures of age, change, and inevitable death. The film works its premise so expertly into its genre; its farcical nature being a perfect platform for its actors to showcase their boundless talents.
The film has as much to do with comedy itself than its more serious implications regarding the allure and danger of nostalgia and recklessness; it reveals how life is at its funniest when we’re at our funniest and most careless; when we’re young and free and have so little to lose and understand about the lives we lead. Barnaby and Edwina’s marriage has reached a point where they’re both reminded of how much freer and impassioned they were at a younger age. Barnaby’s absent-mindedness and incompetence generates his desire to return to a time in his life where he did not have to worry about being mindful and competent at much of anything. His main issue is that he does not realize that he is still the same person he always was, regardless of his age. Just because he knows more does not fundamentally change him. As Barnaby states in the film’s touching final moment, “you’re old only when you forget you’re young.”