I adore Cary Grant, and Ginger Rogers? Yessir! Unfortunately, the last Cary Grant-Ginger Rogers flick I watched was the somewhat incoherent Once Upon a Honeymoon: a major disappointment, since it couldn’t seem to figure out whether it wanted to be a war movie, a comedy, a romance, or what. Monkey Business, on the other hand, was very watchable and loads of fun. Farce, true; and definitely slapstick in a lot of places, but good for a lot of laughs. And it has a luscious Marilyn Monroe.

Dr Barnaby Fulton (Cary Grant) is an absent-minded scientist, an employee at the Oxly Chemical Company. He’s married to the ever-patient and sweet Edwina (Ginger Rogers), who had, seven years earlier, turned down lawyer Hank Entwhistle (Hugh Marlowe) and defied her mother in order to wed Barnaby. They’re happily married, and love each other a lot—enough, in fact, for Edwina to forgive Barnaby for having forgotten they’re going out dancing just as they’re leaving home.

It turns out Barnaby’s preoccupied with work. He’s been working on a formula that’ll reverse aging and bring back lost youth—at least that’s what Barnaby’s boss, Mr Oxly (Charles Coburn), thinks. Barnaby’s more realistic—especially as he hasn’t completely figured out the formula yet. At dinner, Barnaby has a sudden brainwave that heating the formula may do the trick, so the next morning at work, along with his assistant, he gets down to work.
[Aside: Bollyviewer may not think very highly of this lab, but it reminded me uncannily of the chemistry lab in my school when I was a kid.]

The two men leave the lab to heat part of the formula, chill another part, and so on. While they’re gone, one of their lab specimens—a six-month old chimpanzee called Esther—breaks out of her cage. She plonks herself down at one of the tables, and surrounded by all those lovely beakers and jars and pipettes and whatnot, decides to try her hand at mixing up a cocktail.

It doesn’t appeal to her much, so she wanders over to the water cooler—left uncovered by the janitor, who’s gone to get a fresh bottle of water—and empties all of it in. When the janitor returns, he doesn’t realise anything’s wrong, and after replenishing the water cooler, he locks Esther up again. Shortly after, Barnaby and his assistant return, and Barnaby, in the interests of science, decides to test the formula on himself. It’s a bitter brew, so he washes it down with a swig of water from the cooler.

The results are astounding. Barnaby’s blind as a bat at the best of times, but suddenly his vision turns 20/20. His aches and pains are gone, he turns cartwheels, and his sense of humour turns uncomfortably juvenile. As per Edwina’s instructions, he goes off to get a haircut—a short crop—and buys a loud (for 1952!) jacket.

Meanwhile, Mr Oxly sends off his airhead of a secretary, Miss Laurel (Marilyn Monroe), to look for Barnaby. She discovers him buying a swish new car, and is persuaded to come along for a spin. They spend the next few hours together, with Barnaby urging Miss Laurel on to everything he wants to do: rollerskating, swan diving, and driving at crazy speeds. Miss Laurel’s quite charmed by Barnaby’s antics and is quite put out when she discovers he’s married.

When the effects of the formula begin wearing off, Barnaby starts getting sleepy and returns to the lab to snooze. Later that evening, Edwina (having heard he’s back), comes along with a hamper of food. Barnaby narrates everything to her, and says he’s going to try it again, this time with double the dose. Edwina doesn’t think Barnaby should be dosing himself—since he’s the scientist, he should be observing the effects on a test specimen. The long and short of it is that Edwina glugs down the formula, and (because it’s so bitter), follows it with a glass of water from the cooler.

And we all know what happens next. Edwina gets all cheery, clapping and dancing (yes, well: what did you expect with Ginger Rogers?), and even drops a goldfish down Mr Oxly’s trousers. Finally, she pesters Barnaby into taking her back to the hotel where they spent their honeymoon. It’s a long drive, and they reach near midnight, but Edwina’s all pepped up and wants to dance, even though Barnaby nearly falls asleep in the process.

Back in their room, Edwina’s coy, playful and truculent by turn. She finally blows up at Barnaby, tells him she should’ve married Hank instead, and then pushes him out, breaking his glasses in the bargain. Barnaby has a hard time fumbling his way through the hotel, and when a now-recovered Edwina finds him in the morning, he’s sleepy and upset.
When they get home, Barnaby gets even more upset—because Edwina’s mother’s there, raving and ranting. And so is Hank, whom Edwina phoned last night, asking for help with a divorce.

By the time all that gets sorted out, Barnaby’s convinced about one thing: the formula’s not worth it.
Edwina accompanies him back to the lab, where he tears up his research notes. They’re both feeling pretty frazzled by this time, so Edwina makes them a big batch of coffee. And guess where the water comes from? And guess how many cups of coffee each of them has? And guess what happens next? Ha-ha!

What I liked about this film:
It’s plenty of fun: the type of film I like to watch at the end of a hard day to get the kinks out of my system.
Cary Grant. That man was so good at comedy. Arsenic and Old Lace is still my favourite, but this one’s a gem too.

What I didn’t like:
Some of the scenes—the fight with the paint, for instance—go enough over the top to be a little tedious. Funny, I guess, but all that got out of me was a pained smile.