Own the rights?
19 out of 20 people found the following review useful: The Brothers At Their Zaniest, 8 February 2006 Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States
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.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Whatever it is, he's against it!, 19 March 2006 Author: theowinthrop from United States
HORSE FEATHERS, the fourth of the five Paramount Marx Brother Movies, is one of their best - tackling the world of higher education in America. Groucho is the latest of the Presidents of Huxley College, which is doing very badly (apparently) not because of poor scholastic standards but due to not having a successful football team. His son (Zeppo!) steers him toward solving this issue, but with typical Groucho ineptness he thinks the two semi-professional football players he is looking for are Harpo and Chico. He proceeds to regret his own mistake, until the climactic football game.The music numbers of this film are well remembered, particularly Groucho's introduction ("I'M AGAINST IT!") and "Everyone Says I love you". The latter was sung to the anti-heroine of the story, Thelma Todd in her second and last film with the brothers. Thelma plays the "college widow", a popular fictional figure in early 20th Century American humor - a euphemism for an ever-ready widow of a college professor who was there to have sex with students or the staff. George Ade, the humorist who wrote FABLES IN SLANG, wrote a play called "THE COLLEGE WIDOW" in the teens of the 20th Century. Thelma is certainly effective as the vamp trying to help David Landau (President of Darwin College) get the football signals of Huxley College. Her scenes with Groucho and Chico are quite funny. Chico is playing the piano and she sings. She says she has a falsetto voice. Chico says that's all right, his aunt has a false set of teeth. And Groucho, when taking Thelma for a boat trip throws her a lifesaver (literally), while returning with a duck who interrupted his singing.The final football game is the second best spoof of college football on film (the one in Harold Lloyd's THE FRESHMAN is a better one). In the end we see the boys demolish football huddles, football signals, even hot dogs (poor Nat Pendleton).A delightful antique, it is well worth watching. This is one film I'm not against.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: classic, 20 May 2005 Author: Lee Eisenberg (eisenberg.lee@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA
Oh come on! You know the Marx brothers! Groucho, with his cigar, says something that sounds serious, but then makes it into a joke; Chico, with his Italian accent, mangles certain phrases, among other things; Harpo doesn't speak but (literally) has all sorts of tricks up his sleeve; Zeppo actually is serious...to an extent. In this case, Quincy Wagstaff (Groucho) becomes dean of Huxley College and hopes to defeat rival college Darwin in a football game. He hires two goof-balls, Baravelli (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo), while the other college gets the real players.The truth is that you don't even have to understand the plot to have a good time. The movie is all about the Marx brothers' anarchic humor, particularly when Harpo causes a traffic jam and then plays a trick on a cop. The football game at the end is not like any game that you've ever seen. You're sure to love the whole movie. And just remember: swordfish.
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: my favorite Marx Brothers movie, 6 February 2006 Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
While this film ISN'T as famous as DUCK SOUP or A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, it's my personal favorite. I think it's probably because unlike these other two pictures, there isn't all the singing and dancing in HORSE FEATHERS plus it has at least as much energy as any other film they made. Plus, unlike THE COCOANUTS and ANIMAL CRACKERS, there is a real honest-to-goodness plot!!! So, it's not just one gag after another after another.Groucho is wonderful as the incompetent and perpetually horny Professor Wagstaff at Huxley College. Plus, as idiots mistaken for professional ringers, Chico and Harpo are at their best. Oh, and I guess Zeppo is in the movie, but as in all their early Zeppo films, he is pretty much a non-entity. You can really see why he never caught on as one of the Marx Brothers (nor did his other brother, Karl, was was by far the LEAST funny Marx Brother). About the only negative about the film is the climactic football game. Even for a Marx Brothers film, this does get a little too stupid!
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Lots of Good Material, 26 July 2001 Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio
There's a lot of good material in this Marx Brothers feature, with just enough plot to hold it together and to set up a very entertaining final sequence. As usual, there are a number of memorable scenes to choose from when picking your favorite parts of the movie.This time the brothers are let loose on a college campus that is getting ready for a big football game. Groucho and Zeppo are the new college president and his son, while Harpo and Chico arrive from a nearby neighborhood in time to add their own kind of confusion. The campus setting allows them to satirize many aspects of college life, and there are some good off-campus scenes as well, most memorably the 'swordfish' scene in the speakeasy. It's capped off with a hilarious football game that is one of their best sequences.This ranks highly on almost anyone's list of favorite Marx Brothers features - if you're a fan, make sure to see it.
7 out of 10 people found the following review useful: One of the Marx Brothers' best!, 10 May 2001 Author: Robert Reynolds (minniemato@hotmail.com) from Tucson AZ
What the Marx Brothers do to higher education in this film is roaringly funny, from the opening song "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It" to the end, possibly the most bizarre American Football "game" not played in the XFL! Groucho was at or near his best and it's probably the best (and most significant) role Zeppo ever had. Most highly recommended.
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: The Marx Brothers in their prime, 9 September 2005 Author: Matthew Dickson from Denton, TX
One of the better Marx Brothers movies. This one came right in the middle of their prime, between Monkey Business and Duck Soup (probably their two best films). While Horse Feathers isn't quite as funny as either of those, it still has plenty of laughs. The Marx Brothers were still young, but they knew what they were doing now. Again they take advantage of the film medium to do things they never could have done on stage, like the wild football finale. The involvement of the supporting cast is also kept to a minimum, which is always a good thing in Marx Bros. films. They do go back to relying on too many musical numbers. Groucho's opening song "Whatever it is, I'm Against it" seems awkwardly out of place, but it's interesting to see all four brothers do their own version of "Everyone Says I Love you." It's not their very best work, but it's not far from it either.
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Marx Brothers at their best, 21 April 1999 Author: PhilN from Junction City, OR
The Marx Brothers do it again in Horse Feathers. Next to the classic Duck Soup, this is probably their best film. Their anarchist style of comedy is unleashed on Huxley College, a troubled university with a losing football team that hasn't won a game since the 1880's. The film opens with Groucho becoming president of the college, starting off with the musical sequence "Whatever it is, I'm against it." Chico and Harpo are a iceman and a dog catcher, respectivly, and Zeppo is Grouch's son, who is enrolled in the university. The story, if it can be called that, leads up to a football game with Huxley's rival, Darwin University. This has to be seen to be believed.
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Marx Brothers Mania (Groucho, Chico, Harpo & Zeppo), 6 August 2005 Author: Captain_Couth (sirjosephu@aol.com) from Sacramento, CA
Horse Feathers (1932) was the third feature by the four Marx Brothers. This time around, Groucho stars as the head of a small college that's engaged with a football rivalry with a nearby school. His son (Zeppo) is having love problems whilst two local hoodlums (Chico and Harpo) wind up helping Groucho's team out just in time for the big game. The movie is padded out with several boring musical numbers (even Groucho makes note of it during one of them). Can Zeppo find true love? Will Groucho's school win the rivalry? Can Chico and Harpo become big time college football stars? You'll have to find out when you watch Horse Feathers!A very funny film (despite the musical numbers). The best scenes are the one in the speakeasy and the big game. The four brothers made up the best version of the Marx Brothers (I know most people liked the trio but I prefer the quartet). An entertaining film but not as great as their classic film Duck Soup!Highly recommended.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Hollywood's wackiest vaudeville team, 21 August 2008 Author: mbuchwal from United States
The zany screwball Marx Brothers comedy "Horse Feathers" remains one of the most outrageous satires of college football, gangsters and dizzy dames ever to drive a movie audience wild. Made in 1932 at the low-point of the depression, this fourth Marx Brothers feature raised America's sagging spirits with an enormous box office hit, setting the pattern for a string of immensely popular pictures starring the most hilarious vaudeville zanies ever to hit the big screen.The set up in "Horse Feathers" is a bit improbable, to say the least. The faculty of Huxley college is made up entirely of pompous windbags, while the harebrained students are so busy chasing the type of girl you can't bring home to mother they have no time to cheat on their exams. Football players are oafs or nitwits, while gangsters rule both on and off campus. A shady swindler, college President Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Groucho Marx as a deadpan crackpot) is determined to get Huxley College a football victory even if he has to hire overage hoodlums out of a speakeasy to play on the team. A riotous comedy of errors ensues that ends on the gridiron, in one of the most surrealistic sporting events ever to hit the big screen. If the story doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it doesn't have to! There's plenty of opportunity for hilarious gags at every mis-step along the way.The Marx Brothers smashed their way into Hollywood just as talking pictures came in. Their first feature length film, "Cocoanuts," was also the first wacky comedy with sound and featured a lot of wild wordplay in addition to cartoon crazy sight gags and the kind of side-splitting slapstick that was already a staple of the silent movie era. Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo were brothers in real life, as on stage and screen, and before appearing on film they honed their incomparable comic skills in endless live performances at vaudeville theaters all across the nation. This was the key to their artistic success. They perfected their art over and over again on stage before putting it on screen.In 1974, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded "Horse Feathers" star Groucho Marx the special lifetime achievement Oscar for his performance in over a dozen unforgettable roles in which he ridiculed the pretensions of the rich, the pompous and the high and mighty, while making a hash of logic, common sense and the script of any movie in which he appeared. Think it's easy to capture this type of mayhem on camera? Well, it ain't! Very much of the credit for the success of "Horse Feathers" belongs to the crew behind the camera, director Norman McLeod and especially cinematographer Ray June, who also immortalized such stars as Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant. His smooth polished style is responsible for many of our most cherished images from Hollywood's golden age.Personally, I was tickled silly by "Horse Feathers."
Add another review
