Monkey Business (1931 film) the film, and that Eddie Cantor contributed when he visited the set during shooting Typical for many Marx Brothers films, production censors demanded changes in some lines with sexual innuendo. "Monkey Business" was banned in some countries because censors feared it would encourage anarchic tendencies. This is the first Marx Brothers film not to feature Margaret Dumont: this time their female foil is comedian Thelma Todd, who would also star in the Marx Brothers' next film, "Horse Feathers". A few years later, in December 1935, Todd died in unexplained circumstances. A line of dialogue in "Monkey Business" seems to foreshadow
Monkey Business (1931 film) four stowaways because he can hear them singing "Sweet Adeline".) If so, it would be one of only a few times Harpo used speech on screen, as opposed to other vocalizations such as whistling or sneezing. At least one other possible on-screen utterance occurs in the film "A Day at the Races" (1937), in which Groucho, Chico, and Harpo are heard singing "Down by the Old Mill Stream" in three-part harmony. This was the first Marx film to be written specifically for film, and the first shot in Hollywood. Their first two films were filmed at Paramount Pictures' Astoria Studios