‘Monkey Business’ (1931) is the Marx Brothers third movie and the first not to be an adaptation of a stage play. The movie is a non-stop delight–75 or so minutes of one laugh after another., And yet the last line of the film is famously (amongst Marxists anyway) disappointing. After a fight scene in a barn, somebody asks Groucho what he’s doing in a pile of hay. “Looking for a needle in a haystack”, is his reply. And the film quickly fades out, on a joke that a seven year old might have written. Given the supreme wits involved in the creation of the movie–S.J. Perelman, Herman Mankiewicz, Groucho etc.–you’d expect better. So I thought I’d do a little research into the origins of the phrase in the hopes that it might turn out to be rather more recent a term than we might think. If, in fact, it was a term specific to the 1920s (like ‘Yes, We Have No Banana’s’ for instance) then perhaps the joke was funnier to audiences then than it is now. Alas, it turns out it was 401 years old when it was appropriated for ‘Monkey Business’. The author was Sir Thomas More who, in 1532 wrote: “To seek out one line in his books would be to look for a needle in a meadow’.” Oh well. Three years after ‘Monkey Business’, a song called ‘I’m Just Looking For a Needle In A Haystack’ was written for the film version of ‘The Gay Divorcee’ and sung by Fred Astaire. The authors were Con Conrad and Herb Magidson who also wrote ‘The Continental’ for the same film. Above is Astaire performing the delightful number. Below is the original trailer for ‘Monkey Business’. I love the final title card on the trailer: “Lunacy is still a pleasure!” Was the depression–then at its peak (or depths)–really so depressing that one had to be reminded that it was okay to laugh?