Howard Hawks Monkey Business

900 Words2 Pages

Recently I watched Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business (1952), featuring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Marilyn Monroe, this film tells the story of a Barnaby Fulton (Cary Grant), a scientist, who is determined to create a vitamin to take people back to their youth. In a twist of comical proportions one of his lab chimpanzees creates the formula Barnaby has been after. Becoming the first human test subject Barnaby thinks his own formula is what has given him back his youthful spirit and vision. Later his wife (Ginger Rogers) takes an even larger dose, resulting in even further regression into childhood. This leads to talks of jealousy, divorce, culminating in one large hilarious mess. Eventually, Barnaby and his wife make amends and realize they …show more content…

He yearns for success, and wishes to obtain some aspect of his past youth. This yearning for success skews his outlook on how great his life really. At home all he can focus on is his work, and at work he lusts after the secretary (Marilyn Monroe). This need for success and longing to feel young again leads him to testing this new formula on himself. As he regains his eyesight and no longer has a need for glasses he deems his formula a success; little does he know the chimpanzee is the true creator of the successful formula. However, upon regaining the vision of his youth his lust for the secretary reaches a high point and he takes her out. The moral being betrayed in this scenario is envying status and success, and not realizing you are already successful in your own way. His moral decision to cheat and regress to his youth leads his wife to do the same. What comes about in her is jealousy and wanting a divorce. As any viewer can see, Barnaby’s quest for a revitalizing formula and success actually leads to him forgetting how good he has it, which leads him into an even bigger hole to climb out …show more content…

Instead of being disappointed it was not his formula or trying to create a new formula, he decides to be content with the happenings and comes to an important conclusion. In the final lines of the movie he tells his wife he has a new formula for youth. What he implies is not a physical formula but instead a feeling, an emotion. As he pulls her close he decides to be happy with getting older, because it doesn’t matter as long as there is love. This decision will having a lasting improvement on his life. Now he will be able to focus on being happy with his wife, and not as much on trying for success and missing the days of his youth. At the beginning of the movie they miss a party because he's too obsessed with his work and in the final moments of the movie they are planning on going out but instead of delaying because of his work obsession they delay so they can have time together alone. He learned that love is the secret to youth, love is the thing that

Open Document