Cary Grant’s Search for Lost Youth
In “Monkey Business,” Grant learns that you’re only old when you forget you’re young.
Howard Hawks’ 1952 “Monkey Business” was the last collaboration between the director and Cary Grant. Unfortunately, neither Hawks nor Grant liked the film very much. Compared to his other screwball comedies, Hawks thought it didn’t live up to the previous standard. It didn’t help that Hawks and one of the stars, Ginger Rogers, didn’t get along, owing mainly to Hawks’ peculiarities.
For Grant, making the movie almost seemed like the end of his acting career. According to Scott Eyman, “He was middle-aged and increasingly conscious of it. The fact that Hollywood was changing fast was not to his liking. The studios were retrenching, severely cutting back production and costs in the wake of television, and to top it off, the new breed of actors that had become stars were the antithesis of Cary Grant . . .”
Despite all these circumstances and reservations, “Monkey Business” ended up being a charming comedy—certainly one of its time. Yet given its combination of humor and implicit commentary on American marriage and morals, it deserves a reconsideration.
Cary Grant plays Dr. Barnaby Fulton, a scientist on the brink of a discovery: a youth elixir. He works for Oxly chemical company, and the company’s owner, Oliver Oxly, is waiting patiently for the discovery. Although slightly more subdued, Grant’s Barnaby Fulton is similar to Dr. David Huxley, an absent-minded paleontologist in Hawks’ “Bringing Up Baby” (1938). He wears Coke-bottle glasses, and he needs help completing simple tasks. His wife, Edwina (Ginger Rogers), helps him to act like a human being. Without her, it’s clear Barnaby would be lost.