Horse Feathers is one of the five delightful comedies the Marx Brothers released under Paramount's name before their departure to MGM when their films took a more cleaned-up, serious approach. They began to have story lines, cohesion, and, gasp, coherency so as not to play out like a highlight reel from a comedy movie.
From what I hear, this is by far the brothers' most anarchic movie, undisciplined and preposterous on all accounts. Going directly to this with the excellent taste of Duck Soup in my mouth, I was hoping Horse Feathers would fall along the lines of smart and witty humor. It turns out that this film manages to aim far lower below the belt, meaning the jokes are less polished, the screenplay more wacky, and the atmosphere less contained. This is an entirely different recipe compared to Duck Soup.
Groucho Marx is Quincy Adams Wagstaff, who takes over as President of Huxley College. While Wagstaff is already woefully unqualified as a leader, his son Frank (Zeppo) encourages him to buy two football players at a local speakeasy so that Huxley can have a winning team. After a series of hapless screw-ups, Wagstaff winds up mistaking Baravelli (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo), two buffoons who can barely accomplish much of anything, for two football players and from there on out the hilarity takes the wheel.
There is a subplot involving Wagstaff trying to win the hand of Thelma Todd, who portrays a "college widow." A "college widow" is a woman who is long graduated but sticks around at the school to try and find her husband. How she became a widow is a mystery to me, but that fact has little significance to Wagstaff or anyone else in the picture.
Probably the most famous scene that lies in Horse Feathers comes right around the middle of the picture where the film becomes unpolished, glitchy, and messy. Obviously, some serious editing took place in these few minutes. Scenes are missing, clips are jumbled with some springing ahead, dialog is spliced between sentences, and inconsistencies run amok. Apparently, the film was allegedly censored with lines and scenes removed, and there is no existing print where they are not cut out. Seeing these scenes removed provides a nice sense of simplicity that we don't experience very often. Every film now is so polished, crisp, and neatly done, with every frame having gone through careful, tedious examination that so delicately manipulated it, that seeing something back from the thirties in its choppy and obscure form is strangely satisfying.
The other famous scene involves an anarchic, lawless football game within the last ten minutes of the film. It's doomsday for anyone expecting seriousness and things of any reasonable presentation. The film has thrown caution to the wind and has decided to go AWOL. Horse Feathers is a fun film, and the brothers are all up to par (especially Harpo who, again, delivers some of the funniest physical comedy around) especially during the catchy musical numbers that pop up often, though, after a while, you begin to wish some seriousness had taken effect.
Starring: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, and Thelma Todd. Directed by: Norman Z. McLeod.
From what I hear, this is by far the brothers' most anarchic movie, undisciplined and preposterous on all accounts. Going directly to this with the excellent taste of Duck Soup in my mouth, I was hoping Horse Feathers would fall along the lines of smart and witty humor. It turns out that this film manages to aim far lower below the belt, meaning the jokes are less polished, the screenplay more wacky, and the atmosphere less contained. This is an entirely different recipe compared to Duck Soup.
Groucho Marx is Quincy Adams Wagstaff, who takes over as President of Huxley College. While Wagstaff is already woefully unqualified as a leader, his son Frank (Zeppo) encourages him to buy two football players at a local speakeasy so that Huxley can have a winning team. After a series of hapless screw-ups, Wagstaff winds up mistaking Baravelli (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo), two buffoons who can barely accomplish much of anything, for two football players and from there on out the hilarity takes the wheel.
There is a subplot involving Wagstaff trying to win the hand of Thelma Todd, who portrays a "college widow." A "college widow" is a woman who is long graduated but sticks around at the school to try and find her husband. How she became a widow is a mystery to me, but that fact has little significance to Wagstaff or anyone else in the picture.
Probably the most famous scene that lies in Horse Feathers comes right around the middle of the picture where the film becomes unpolished, glitchy, and messy. Obviously, some serious editing took place in these few minutes. Scenes are missing, clips are jumbled with some springing ahead, dialog is spliced between sentences, and inconsistencies run amok. Apparently, the film was allegedly censored with lines and scenes removed, and there is no existing print where they are not cut out. Seeing these scenes removed provides a nice sense of simplicity that we don't experience very often. Every film now is so polished, crisp, and neatly done, with every frame having gone through careful, tedious examination that so delicately manipulated it, that seeing something back from the thirties in its choppy and obscure form is strangely satisfying.
The other famous scene involves an anarchic, lawless football game within the last ten minutes of the film. It's doomsday for anyone expecting seriousness and things of any reasonable presentation. The film has thrown caution to the wind and has decided to go AWOL. Horse Feathers is a fun film, and the brothers are all up to par (especially Harpo who, again, delivers some of the funniest physical comedy around) especially during the catchy musical numbers that pop up often, though, after a while, you begin to wish some seriousness had taken effect.
Starring: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, and Thelma Todd. Directed by: Norman Z. McLeod.