Driftwood calls a steward ("I say, Stew") and orders dinner. This continues until Fiorello and Tomasso each have ordered about a dozen hard-boiled eggs and Driftwood has ordered about everything else—including coffee to sober up some stewed prunes. This is just a set-up for the famous "Stateroom Scene", in which a total of 15 people crowd into Driftwood's tiny cabin. Fiorello and Tomasso have to hide out in the room while a parade of people walk in, asking to either use the cabin, or to perform their regular duties. Crammed into this little space at the end of the scene are Driftwood, Fiorello, Tomasso, Ricardo, two cleaning ladies who make up the bed, a manicurist (Manicurist: Do you want your nails long or short? Driftwood: You better make them short, it's getting crowded in here."), a ship's engineer and his fat assistant, a young woman passenger using the phone to call her Aunt Minnie, a maid (Maid: "I come to mop up." Driftwood: "You'll have to start on the ceiling.") and four waiters with trays of hard-boiled eggs. (Driftwood: Tell Aunt Minnie to send up a bigger room".) All of the foregoing tumble out into the hallway when Mrs. Claypool opens the door. The contract scene between Driftwood and Fiorello ("the party of the first part ..."): In an interview with Richard J. Anobile in "The Marx Brothers Scrapbook", Groucho said he was so appalled by an early draft of the script—which was apparently written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby—that he shouted, "Why fuck around with second-rate talent, get Kaufman and Ryskind [to write the screenplay]!" At the suggestion of producer Irving Thalberg, the film marked a change of direction in the brothers' career. In their Paramount films, the brothers' characters were much more anarchic: they attacked almost anybody who was so unfortunate to cross their paths whether they deserved it or not, albeit comically. Thalberg, however, felt that this made the brothers unsympathetic, particularly to female filmgoers. So in the MGM films, the brothers were recast as more helpful characters, saving most of their comic attacks for the villains. Though some Marx Brothers fans disliked these changes, Thalberg was vindicated when the film became a solid hit.