The picnic-in-a-barn scene in Monkey Business is fluff.
Trying to save a gangster’s daughter and his sweetheart Lucille, imprisoned in a barn, Groucho and Chico enter with picnic gear. Sitting on a pile of hay, Groucho spreads a white cloth and sets out tin plates, bread, a banana, and an orange. When a calf walks by, Groucho asks for a milk tin at the “filling station.” It’s a flat joke but apt for an Urbanite like Groucho.
Picnic chatter is nonsensical:
Groucho: Here we are at the old barn, all set for a nice picnic lunch. Gosh, the picnic is off, we haven’t got any red ants.
Chico: I know an Indian whose got a couple of Red aunts.
Groucho: Don’t you think we’d better go look for the girl?
Chico: Let’s wait till we eat, there’s hardly enough lunch for two. I don’t see why she couldn’t get kidnapped near a restaurant.
In the background, a horse in a stall faces viewers ass-backward.
The cast: Groucho Marx as Groucho; Harpo Marx as Harpo
Featured Image: Norman Z. McLeod. Monkey Business (1931).
See Norman Z. McLeod. Monkey Business (1931). Screenplay by S.J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone with additional dialog by Arnold Sheekman.