Some movies were just made to be funny, and “Horse Feathers” is one of them, in fact you can say that about every movie The Marx Brothers ever made, but “Horse Feathers was made at their zenith, they were at the height of their powers at Paramount studios, where they made five films, probably their five finest films until they were ultimately transferred over to MGM where they gained more popularity but were put on a leash as their films became more glossed over with romantic subplots and big production numbers given a bigger role, and the jokes while still there were less frequent.
But let me back up a bit and talk about just why The Marx Brothers themselves are so important to the history of movies since they may not actually be house hold names any more. The Marx Brothers brand of humour was something new to the world of film when they made their debut in 1929. They were zany, off the wall, you couldn’t control them, they displayed anarchy for the first time in movies, it was something edgy, something dangerous, it was unpredictable, wild, and even a little bit naughty with Groucho spewing double entendres that usually got past the censors. The Marx Brothesdidn’t so much make movies as they invaded them leaving comedic debris in their wake.
With “Horse Feathers”, the Marx Brothers try their hand at a college comedy, where Groucho’s Quincy Adams Wagstaff becomes the new dean of students at the imaginary Huxly university. The main plot involves Wagstaff trying to recruit professional football players to help their team win the big game against rival university Darwin, but he inadvertently mistakes two icemen as the ringers he was supposed to get at a local speakeasy. One iceman is Baravelli played by Chico Marx, and the other is also a part time dog catcher Pinky played by Harpo Marx. The two then enroll into Huxly University and of course chaos ensues usually involving blond bombshell Thelma Todd who the brothers all seem to have a thing for. The film concludes with a highly comical football game that throws sense out the window in favor of sight gags, and Groucho’s occasional one-liners. ESPN called it one of the greatest football related scenes in movie history.
I could talk about the plot which doesn’t really matter, or I could talk about the gags and the scenes that are funny throughout such as Groucho and Chico going through a vaudevilleesque routine about saying a certain password to enter a speakeasy, or Harpo, cutting a deck of cards with a hatchet, or Groucho singing to the faculty of the college the song “I’m against it”, in where he declares “I don’t care what they say, it makes no difference anyway whatever it is I’m against it.” The film is full of different types of humour either physical, gag filled, pun filled, or musical, it hits all the marks. It even gives moments for Chico to playfully play his piano, and Harpo to play his harp which were trademarks in most of their movies. Horse Feathers and The Marx Brothers themselves represented something new to the world of comedy and the world of film, they may have been the first to say “Hey this is a movie, and we know you’re watching us, so we’re going to give you a good time. I like to think there was a certain philosophy with how they viewed the world, it didn’t hurt to ruffle a few feathers whether with education as in “Horse Feathers”, or with politics in their later film “Duck Soup”, or with the artsy crowd in their last great film “A Night at the Opera”. To them anyone on their high horse had the right to be taken down a peg or two and they were always there to make sure it was done, they were comedy heroes through and through, what can I say I love them, I love this movie 4 stars.
