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) "the best this family has given us." The film was evidently based on two routines the Marx Brothers did during their early days in vaudeville ("Home Again" and "Mr. Green's Reception"), along with a story idea from one of Groucho's friends, Bert Granet, called "The Seas Are Wet". The passport scene is a reworking of a stage sketch in which the brothers burst into a theatrical agent's office auditioning an impersonation of a current big star. It appeared in their stage shows "On the Mezzanine Floor" and "I'll Say She Is" (1924). This skit was also done by the Marxes