I fratelli Marx al college

Hilarious Marx Bros. film with Groucho as the new president of Huxley College and Zeppo as his son, who convinces his dad to recruit professional football players to help the college's losing team. Groucho sets out to do just that but instead of getting two pros, he recruits speakeasy 'icemen' Chico and Harpo. Chaos naturally ensues at the college leading up to the big football game, which has to be seen to be believed.

All of the brothers are in top form here, with the main three getting lots of funny bits and Zeppo getting possibly his best role from any of their films. Thelma Todd appears in her second Marx Bros. movie, playing the girlfriend of villain David Landau who sets out to seduce Zeppo and winds up seducing the rest of the brothers, too. Sadly there's no Margaret Dumont this time. This is probably the best Marx movie that didn't feature Dumont. Nat Pendleton plays one of the football players on the opposing team. Look out for Walter Brennan as a commentator on the big game. Some funny tunes and several great gags, including "The password is swordfish," the crazy football game, Groucho teaching a class, and all those funny things Harpo pulls out of that coat of his. It's one of the Marx Brothers' best. Definitely recommended.

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.

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.

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.

Don't watch HORSE FEATHERS expecting anything like a coherent plot, developed characterization or sophisticated filming technique. Shot on a shoestring by Paramount, with more than its fair share of stock footage, it has the feel of a quickie; a more up-market version of the Hal Roach two-reelers that were released at the same time with Laurel and Hardy. On the other hand HORSE FEATHERS does preserve for posterity some of the Marx Brothers' finest routines. Groucho has never been better as a crazy professor charged with the responsibility of rescuing a poor school; his dialog fairly crackles with one-liners, and he is a past master at handling mock-love scenes. Harpo has his fair share of visual set-pieces, notably when he leads a police officer a merry dance in and around his dog-catcher's van. He also has the chance for one of his harp solos. Chico enjoys himself most during a speakeasy scene, when he and the other two brothers have great fun with the so-called 'secret' password. He gets to play the piano in another specialty number. The ending is a bit weak, with a crazy football game stretching the audiences' credibility to the limit, but all in all the film is great fun; the humor stands up well eight decades later.