Monkey Business (1931 film) Monkey Business (1931 film) Monkey Business is a 1931 American Pre-Code comedy film. It is the third of the Marx Brothers' released movies, and the first with an original screenplay rather than an adaptation of one of their Broadway shows. The film also stars Thelma Todd. It is directed by Norman Z. McLeod with screenplay by S. J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone. Much of the story takes place in on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean. On board an ocean liner to America, four stowaways are involuntarily pressed into service as toughs for a pair of feuding gangsters
Commotion on the Ocean microfilm of State Department documents, which Chambers had concealed in a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm. As Shemp Howard had already died, for his last four films ("Rumpus in the Harem", "Hot Stuff", "Scheming Schemers" and "Commotion on the Ocean"), Columbia utilized supporting actor Joe Palma to be Shemp's double. Even though the last four shorts were remakes of earlier Shemp efforts, Palma's services were needed to link what few new scenes were filmed to the older stock footage.It is also the final film to feature Shemp as a stooge. He would be replaced with Joe Besser in the