The House That Shadows Built

The House That Shadows Built (1931) is a short feature film, roughly 55 minutes long, from Paramount Pictures, made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the studio's founding in 1912. The film includes a brief history of Paramount, interviews with various actors, and clips from upcoming projects (some of which actually never came to fruition).

The film is most notable for a six-minute short starring the Marx Brothers—with Ben Taggart playing Mr. Lee, Theatrical Producer—intended to promote their forthcoming film Monkey Business. The short film, containing material which was never included in any other Marx Brothers film, is a re-working of the first scene of their first successful Broadway play I'll Say She Is—which Groucho considered to have been the funniest work in the Brothers' career. Except for a few name changes and additional gags, the scene is almost completely the same as the script used for the stage production. Some of the gags were worked into the lobby scene in The Cocoanuts (1929), and a bit involving a series of Maurice Chevalier imitations was incorporated into the script of Monkey Business (1931).

The Marx Brothers' segment is currently available as a special feature on the direct-to-DVD documentary film Inside the Marx Brothers, albeit in poor condition. Recently, Marx Brothers fans have begun referring to their segment simply as I'll Say She Is, in light of its source material.

The film also contains some of the only surviving reels of the much sought after Lon Chaney Sr. film The Miracle Man. The film was released in 1919, but lost over time. The scene present in the film shows Lon Chaney acting as a contortionist.

External links

• The House That Shadows Built at the Internet Movie Database
• The House That Shadows Built at the TCM Movie Database
• Film as Art: Review of Marx Brothers' segment of the film
• clip from Monkey Business trailer