Cary Grant plays Dr Barnaby Fulton, a mild-mannered, bespectacled industrial scientist working on a 'rejuvenation' elixir for his tetchy boss Mr Oxley (Charles Coburn). I can only say that this film whizzes joyfully along with touches of pure genius: at once sublimely innocent and entirely worldly. Monkey Business is undervalued by some, on account of its alleged inferiority to the master's 30s pictures, and the accident of sharing a title with a film by the Marx Brothers. It is part romp, part druggie-surrealist masterpiece, and a complete joy.
So out of sheer indulgence, I have checked out something at the Howard Hawks season at the BFI Southbank in London: his 1952 screwball comedy, Monkey Business. This is a rare, relatively quiet moment in the critic's year: perhaps because of the Baftas, there are comparatively few new releases.
