Horse Feathers (1932) Director: Norman Z. McLeod
“I don’t know what they have to say.
It makes no difference anyway.
Whatever it is, I’m against it!”
★★★★★
The Marx Brothers do a college comedy! In the same vein as Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman or Buster Keaton’s College, Horse Feathers is a delightfully anarchic satire of the unique traditions at American college campuses. The fourth Marx Brothers film, following Animal Crackers, The House That Shadows Built, and Monkey Business, Horse Feathers was also a film released before the censorship codes were introduced in Hollywood in 1934. It features all the classic wordplay jokes, character swapping gags, breaking of the fourth wall, binge-drinking, football, classroom antics, and stuffy old academics whose orderly world is suddenly tossed into chaos when Groucho Marx takes the helm of the school (notably, this film lacks the characteristic aristocratic flair of Margaret Dumont who had previously appeared in the Marx Brothers films).
The plot of the film follows two colleges, Darwin and Huxley -perhaps a play on Charles Darwin and his “bulldog” Thomas Henry Huxley. Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Groucho Marx) has been appointed the new President of Huxley college. At his induction ceremony, he can be seen shaving and smoking onstage while proclaiming that his reason for coming to the college was to get his son to drop out, implying that his son Frank (Zeppo Marx) flirts with too many women. He accuses his son of spending time with a “college widow,” a now dated term for a woman who remains close to college campus in order to spend time with young men year after year. He breaks into the famous Marx Brothers political number entitled, “I’m Against It” –indeed, the film features numerous other classic musical numbers such as “Everyone Says I Love You” by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, later adopted as the title of a Woody Allen film. Very quickly into the film, the audience learns that Huxley College has had a different President every year since 1888, which was the last year the college football team actually won a game. Thus, Professor Wagstaff takes it upon himself to refocus the college to emphasize the football team rather than academics. He begins by acquiring football players who are drinking at a local speakeasy. Here, we meet an ice man and bootlegger named Baravelli (Chico Marx) and another ice man and dog catcher named Pinky (Harpo Marx) –both are accidentally recruited to play football for Huxley. Baravelli is mistakenly given the role of doorman (cue the wordplay gags with “swordfish” and “sturgeon” and so on), while Pinky seems to have stored all manner objects in his baggy clothes –a cup of coffee, a candle burning at both ends, an axe for cutting a deck of cards. In another scene, we see him mistaking a pay phone for a slot machine, Meanwhile, all characters seem to be courting a young woman named Connie Bailey (Thelma Todd), the aforementioned “college widow.” In the end, Huxley wins the big college football game 31-12 by bending the rules –introducing multiple footballs into the game and sending chariots onto the field to carry the ball into the end-zone via a “hidden ball trick.” They manage to kidnap the ringers from Darwin College. At the close, Professor Wagstaff, Baravelli, and Pinky all marry the same “college widow,” Connie Bailey, each pronouncing “we do” at the same time.
Notable Groucho Marx Quotations in Horse Feathers:
- “Well, I thought my razor was dull until I heard his speech.”
- “I’d horsewhip you if I had a horse.”
- “I don’t know what they have to say.
It makes no difference anyway.
Whatever it is, I’m against it.” - “You’ve got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it.”
- “I’m the plumber. I’m just hanging around in case something goes wrong with her pipes. [Aside] That’s the first time I’ve used that joke in 20 years.”
- “You’re a disgrace to our family name of Wagstaff, if such a thing is possible. What’s all this talk I hear about you fooling around with the college widow? No wonder you can’t get out of college. Twelve years in one college! I went to three colleges in twelve years and fooled around with three college widows! When I was your age, I went to bed right after supper. Sometimes I went to bed before supper. Sometimes I went without my supper and didn’t go to bed at all! A college widow stood for something in those days. In fact, she stood for plenty.”
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Credits:
- Director: Norman Z. McLeod
- Writers: S. J. Perelman, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Will B. Johnstone, and Arthur Sheekman (uncredited)
- Produced by: Herman J. Mankiewicz (uncredited)
- Starring:
- Groucho Marx…..Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff
- Harpo Marx…..Pinky
- Chico Marx…..Baravelli
- Chico was severely injured in a car accident so most of his scenes feature him sitting down.
- Zeppo Marx…..Frank Wagstaff
- Thelma Todd…..Connie Bailey
- David Landau…..Jennings
- Cinematography: Ray June
- Music by: John Leipold, Harry Ruby
- Distributed by: Paramount Pictures