“Animal Crackers” @ MoMA
I should’ve spent last night the throws of this thing with the rest of New York’s film snobs. Instead, I was at the Titus 1 theatre with two friends and a smattering of seniors.
I couldn’t have had a more run-of-the-mill evening at MoMA if I tried. The theatre was filled to half-capacity, at best. It was a Wednesday night crowd – the elderly, the unwashed, and the compulsive. Rather than try and catch a new release, or something I’d never seen before, I chose to sit through “Animal Crackers” for the 80th time this year, and laugh at the same old vaudeville.
“Animal Crackers” is one of their earliest film efforts (what “Cocoanuts?”), a filmed version of their play, written by George S. Kafuman. It’s a funny little movie, but sometimes hard to watch. The filmmakers, no doubt blinded by the new technology of sound, don’t really bother with visual artistry. Occasionally they’ll do that early-30s thing where the camera moves along a track for a zoom in, or for no apparent reason, but the effect is lost in relation to the other shots. In another scene we hold on a window, watching as a storm breaks out – the camera moves and shifts, like bad handheld, but I couldn’t tell you if that’s intentional or not.
On top of that, I had a sort of realization that “Animal Crackers” might be one of the tackiest films I’ve ever seen. Nearly every piece of furniture in the Ritten-house is angular, inorganic, and seemingly covered in triangles. Pick any other film from that era – Astaire-Rogers pictures, or Frank Borzage – and the set design is just another beautiful old element. Here, it’s a little much. The cast, clad in soft gowns and well-worn dinner jackets, stick out like a lace pimple.
In spite of the lack of expertise, I’m still glad I went. I didn’t pay a dime, the theatre was dry, and there were no fist fights. And as far as I’m concerned, nothing beats a bunch of shticky Jews falling all over each other in front of a crowd of baffled socialites.
