Monkey Business: The Lives and Legends of the Marx Brothers

Rating:
Summary: Well Done Research
Review: This book gets Three Stars for the research! In contrast to Stefan Kanfer's recent biography of Groucho, this book delves alot deeper into the vaudeville origins of the Brothers and their comedy style. Also Louvish has done some admirable work spotlighting the early days of Groucho's foil, Margaret Dumont. There is a helpful bibliography at the end, as well as a helpful list of the Marxes' film and radio work. (Surprise! Their last film wasn't Love Happy, it was actually Irwin Allen's The Story of Mankind.) I have to agree with some of the comments here about Louvish's writing style--he occasionally becomes a bit overenthusiastic. Like fans of Monty Python or Star Trek, it is hard for him to get through a paragraph without making some reference to the shows. This is overall, pretty forgiveable considering the work he has done.

This has been a good year for fans of the Marx Brothers, probably the most new books out at one time since the 1970's. I hope we will continue to see more.