There are a great many books about the Marx Brothers — trust me; I have them all — but the best is Joe Adamson's Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo. In response to an item posted here the other day, Joe writes…
In point of fact, the reason there were scenes in the old British 35's that are no longer in the American prints or negatives has less to do with alternate versions than with post-1934 Hays Office censorship — If you know your film history, you know that Joseph Breen made the U.S. Production Code much stricter in 1934 than it previously been, and cuts were made in American prints when Paramount re-issued the film, and the footage has never been recovered or restored. When we made The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell in 1981, we made an effort to find a British print that contained this footage, but were told that they had suffered nitrate deterioration since Allen Eyles wrote the book The Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy, which I referred to in my footnote. There's a total of about 5 minutes missing, including a scene I describe as being in Kalmar and Ruby's script but not in the film — Well, it was in the film, but not today.
There was also an effort to locate this footage when the first videotape of Horsefeathers was made, but it was similarly unsuccessful. The place to try now is Russia, which was unavailable to film archivists prior to 1989.
I'm in the act of revising my 1973 book and just discovered that Paramount considered reissuing Monkey Business before Horsefeathers, and asked the Hays Office to tell them what cuts would be necessary — They responded with a short list of lines and scenes that are still in the movie today (including Harpo's gag at the Ladies' room) before Paramount explained that they'd decided to reissue Horsefeathers and Little Miss Marker instead — Hence the footage no longer there.
I've found in my research that there's about 5 minutes each missing from Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera, as well as Horsefeathers, tho I haven't been able to find any evidence of anything missing from any of the others. Look for my revision to contain a number of such treasures, about which I had not a clue in 1973 — but then, neither did the rest of us!
Thanks, Joe. You know, if the folks who own those movies now want to find that lost footage, all they have to do is put out real expensive DVDs of the current version and proclaim them as definitive. Once I purchase my copies, content that I will never again have to purchase these films, the missing scenes will turn up, just so they can put out new versions I have to buy. And then after I buy those, something else will turn up. (Hey, I'm going to have to buy another edition of your book, too…)