I fratelli Marx al college

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.

I was challenged by a reader, because I wrote that a movie was funny. His belief was that the movie wasn't funny, that it couldn't be because the comedians were too old, and I wouldn't know in any case because I was also too old. So I turned to the good old Marx Brothers.

Fortunately, some other unhappy soul had deleted my comment for this movie, so I can write a replacement.

I think this is funny. It shouldn't really matter to me whether anyone else does, except insofar as they support the market forces that guarantee I can access it. But as it happens, lots of other people also think it funny and I wonder why.

"Horse Feathers," if you do not know, was the frontier term for split boards about two feet long that were nailed on barns in an overlapping fashion like shingles. These were primitive, but had the advantage of keeping your major investment, your horse, warm. They are themselves ad hoc, somewhat random with some order, and an effective container. Such a barn was wholly man-made, but clearly the mind finds it handy to make the joke that if the barn looked like a chicken, then its name should follow.

Lexicographers know that language often naturally grows from these jokes. The older the term gets, the deeper the joke: "horsefeathers" probably originated in the 1870-80's homesteading era, and gained popularity as farm boys from those areas were mixed into the WW I army, the term used as a substitute for one whose use would have been punished for insubordination. It subsequently entered the print world when used in Wilson's second presidential campaign.

A youngster with no knowledge of its origin would simply hear "nonsense." but a wizened farmer would recall the image of a building that looks ridiculous, like a chicken. He would have recalled chuckling when thinking what part of the chicken he would enter and exit each day when doing his chores. It would contribute to giving his life enough richness to keep going.

I believe that the best humor is humor like this. It combines small twists of language with implied bigger twists of incited images. And it gets warmer and deeper (and funnier) the more you live with it.

The first (language and image), is what the Marx brothers invented in cinema. These guys had honed a stage act based on clever language — timing, twists, perspectives implied by stereotypes. Its all in the words. But they were able to bring it to us in a frantic, ad hoc visual manner, so that we could have a blizzard of images like the feathered barn, the images themselves feathered together in a sort of story.

Eye and mind played with, and played through practice. These masters were not kids. Groucho by the time this was made was 43. He got funnier every year after that in working with these sorts of ad libbed word images. His "secret word" bit in "You Bet your Life," was even a part of this.

These, I think, are basic to the both the notion of what makes cinema work (folded images and narrative) and what makes humor attractive (naming enriched by ambiguous image). If you want to know yourself, you navigate through your cupboard of these that you have collected. You go to school. You play the game. You can only do this and truly laugh if you are old enough (or young and aggressive enough in collecting) to have something to rumble around in.

Marx brothers: old school funny. At least to me.

This is one of their Paramount projects before being reinvented again by MGM. More random; more eggs.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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.

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, who 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! But, the rest of the movie is so good, you really don't mind.

UPDATE: I just saw this film on the big screen and upon viewing it again, I am reducing the score to 8. Yes, it is good for the Marx Brothers but the plot, such as it is, is barely a plot at all, the film's ending is bizarre and senseless and a few of the jokes a bit less funny after re-watching. Still good and still worth seeing if you just turn off your brain and enjoy all the nonsense.

Fun and hilariously amusing comedy in which the Marx Brothers attempting to win a Rugby major championship for getting fame and fortune to save the University . Relentlessly comical and outrageous comedy with musical interludes that still works very well . The first to follow ¨Monkey Business¨, one of their biggest success and use a variation on its formula . Amusing and entertaining Marx Brothers picture , it has a lot of funny material and unfortunately intrusive songs . Groucho's wisecracks and the incomparable Chico and Harpo carry the movie . Profesor Wagstaff (Groucho Marx) has just been installed as the new but corrupt president of Huxley College , and he has to beef up its football team to win the championship game which has been rigged by local gamblers in the opposition´s favor , as he knows just how to do it . His rightness attitude toward education is not reserved for his son Frank (Zeppo) , who is seeing the college widow , Connie Bailey. Frank influences Wagstaff to recruit two football players who hang out in a speakeasy, in order to beat rival school Darwin . Unfortunately, Wagstaff mistakenly hires the crooks and hilarious Baravelli (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo). Finding out that Darwin has beaten him to the "real" players, Wagstaff enlists Baravelli and Pinky attempt to kidnap them. They go collegiate-and change "rah-rah" into "ha-ha-ha!"Mirth's Four Horsemen run wild thru a college of love-thirsty co-eds. Lunacy becomes a pleasure as these nuts go collegiate! They turn dear old Darwin into a monkey asylum-twist rah! Rah! Into ha! Ha! -and have a swell time while the school burns to the ground!

Amusing and fun Marx movie with a series of incidents which lead to an anarchic football end . Features some of the brothers´s classic routines and the songs : ¨Whatever it is , I´m against it¨ , ¨Everyone says I love you¨. Classic Marx film with many funny sequences , this is the most sustained bit of insanity , full of crazy gags , antics and amusement , being now deemed a satiric masterpiece and one of the biggest hits . Though not as mercilessly hilarious and outrageous as other films , it results to be , nonetheless , an agreeable movie . The Marx Brothers were still at the peak of their fame in this Paramount Pictures musical/comedy. Although it suffers from excessive musical comedy plotting , but it gives the zany threesome plenty of comic elaboration . It works very well , which , unfortunately and sadly , did not prove to be the case with most of the Marx Brothers pictures that went on . Enough gags for give several movies , but our favorite is still as Harpo gets to win the match . Despite the abundant songs , the movie maintains itself very well . Excellent Harpo Marx , as usual , he even did many of his own stunts , he later said it was a silly thing for a 47-year-old .This is the second Marx Brothers film made with brother Zeppo Marx, it started a new trend of The Marx Brothers movies featuring a Zeppo-like supporting character who carries the love story and sings the song . If previous Marx films were M. G. M. Lavishly financed by Max Siegel and Irving Thalberg , from now on, their movies produced by Paramount Pictures and Herman J. Mankiewicz . The motion picture was well directed by Norman Z MacLeod . He was a perfectionist filming very charming scenes . Don't miss it , one of the funniest picture ever made by Marx Brothers.

Other important films starred by Marx Brothers -many of them Broadway farce plays transfered by scenarists into vehicle for the Brothers- , they are the following ones : ¨Animal crackers¨, ¨Duck soap¨ that was a flop when first released but today considered a masterpiece , ¨Horse Feathers¨, ¨At the circus¨, ¨A night at the Opera¨,¨Day at the races¨ , ¨Room service¨ , ¨Go West¨, ¨Love Happy¨ and ¨Night in Casablanca¨, though in 1946 the Marx formula was weak and wearing thin. Any film with Groucho , Chico , Harpo and Zeppo is well worth seeing .