BYU

Harold B. Lee Library

Monkey Business

Monkey BusinessCary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe

  • Time: 7:00 PM
  • Date: Friday, March 28, 2008
  • Place: HBLL Auditorium, 1st Floor; Admission is free; arrive early for seats.


About the Event
Studio publicity releases chose to describe this unusual Cary Grant comedy as “revolving around a research chemist’s discovery of a reversion-to-youth formula. Though he begins by experimenting on the playful chimps who contribute to the picture’s title, the scientist soon gives way to the temptation of trying the magic potion himself. It’s then that Cary Grant begins to slip back into sequences pegged on childhood and adolescent stages of development.” No, we’re not making this up, but yes, this is a hilarious comedy that only master director Howard Hawks could pull off in such grand fashion, complete with a deadpan-funny performance by newcomer Marilyn Monroe. It’s apparent outrageousness is actually couched in skill and artistry as, on the film’s release, celebrated French director Jacques Rivette wrote, “The evidence on the screen is proof of Hawks’s genius: you only have to watch Monkey Business to know that it is a brilliant film.” The Howard Hawks Papers are preserved in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections. 20th Century-Fox. 1952. 97 mins. Director: Howard Hawks.
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