Horse Feathers (1932)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Norman Z. McLeod

Writers:

Bert Kalmar (screenplay) and
Harry Ruby (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

19 August 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance | Sport

Tagline:

The Maddest Comics of the Screen!

Plot:

Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against rival Darwin U.

Plot Keywords:

College | Speakeasy | Professor | Widow | Education

Cast

Groucho Marx	...	Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff
Harpo Marx	...	Pinky
Chico Marx	...	Baravelli
Zeppo Marx	...	Frank Wagstaff
Thelma Todd	...	Connie Bailey
David Landau	...	Jennings

Runtime:

68 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

Spain:T | Portugal:M/6 | South Korea:All | USA:Approved (PCA reissue certificate no. 1713-R) | Australia:G | Finland:S | Germany:o.Al. | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Occidental College -1600 Campus Road, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

According to Groucho Marx, when Thelma Todd fell out of the boat he kept rowing as she cried for help not knowing she really couldn't swim. Crew members got her out of the water.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the opening scene, Prof. Wagstaff suddenly appears between shots as he is introduced.

Quotes:

Connie: If icky baby don't learn about the football signals, icky baby gonna cwy.
Professor Wagstaff: If icky girl keep on talking that way, big stwong man's gonna kick all of her teef wight down her fwoat.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Psych: An Evening with Mr. Yang (#3.16)" (2009)

Soundtrack:

Wedding March

The Brothers At Their Zaniest

To anyone who has never seen a Marx Brothers film, it's hard to describe. "Horse Feathers" just may be the wackiest, corniest, dumbest, funniest and just plain craziest movie you've ever seen. It could be any one of those adjectives. In my opinion, it's all of them. It's my favorite film of these guys.

Perhaps no film has so many of the above-listed descriptions, in spades, as this one does. It just leaves you shaking your head. Some of the lines in here are some of the best I've ever heard and some of the scenes and jokes are the dumbest I've ever seen. One thing for sure: they come at you at a machine-gun pace. You barely have time to digest what you just saw and heard and there's another joke coming at you. You can barely keep up with it all. The football scenes at the end of the film are the most outrageous I have ever seen. They, like much of the movie, have to be seen to be believed. Yes, the latter is a little too ridiculous but, hey, that''s the Marx Brothers.

The only breaks from the non-stop jokes comes when one of the brothers decides to sing a song or play the piano or harp. Those tunes are so-so. The long harp solo by Harpo is too long. I read once where the brothers were opposed to having that in this movie...and they were proved right; it didn't fit. Other than that, this is 67 minutes of pure insanity.