Plumes de cheval (1932) Online

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.

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.

Plot (or should I say plan of attack)— Entering a college campus, the gang gets to deconstruct the whole idea of higher education.

The gags fly faster than speeding bullets. There's no real let-up, not even for hasty romantic interludes with Zeppo and Todd. It's like the boys have a hundred pages of material to squeeze into 70-minutes. Harpo's got more to do than usual, even a harp solo, while Groucho is at his caustic best with a zillion one-liners. I did miss his usual foil, Margaret Dumont, who should have been lurking somewhere in the faculty lounge. Instead, as a college president, he gets to insult anything collegiate, including America's unofficial national religion-- football. And check out that big game that looks more like Ben Hur than a sports contest. But what I really liked was Thelma Todd in the slinkiest gowns this side of Jean Harlow. And what a fine comedienne she was; too bad her life ended as several probing pages in Hollywood Babylon. All in all, this is the chaos brothers at their liveliest, and may cause highschoolers to rethink the whole idea of higher education.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here, Groucho does take the reins, but it is as the new dean of Huxley College where he assures the faculty, board and students that "Whatever it is, I'm against it!". What he's not against is improving their football team, and that's what this is all about, getting two non- scholastic football players enrolled and winning the big game against their rival. Groucho's brother, Zeppo, plays his own son here, involved with the college widow (Thelma Todd) who tries to romance Groucho in getting the game plan while on a romantic boat ride. Groucho truly plays the hero here as Todd falls overboard which leads to a hysterical advertisement gag when she cries for the life saver.

Of course, Chico and Harpo are in the mix, whether interrupting a science class that Groucho takes over (literally tossing the professor out on his ear), and Harpo proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt, you can burn a candle at both ends. Then, when Chico and Harpo, attempting to kidnap the two football players from the rival team, end up kidnapped themselves, it becomes a race against time to get to the stadium where one of the zaniest football games ever on screen is played.

Gags come fast and furious in this light-hearted romp with a few songs thrown in. Then, there's the famous speakeasy scene where the password is the subject of a classic comedy scene between Chico and Groucho. Norman Z. McLeod, returning after directing the boys in "Monkey Business", provides a light atmosphere that skewers the whole college political scene. When you've got the Marxx Brothers running around a University and one of them running it, education is certain to take a back seat, and hilarity right up front.

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.

Suffering from some Post-Code Cuts that have been Lost that makes for a couple of Scenes that remain rather Jagged and Jumbled, this Marx Brothers Paramount Comedy is still Considered one of Their Best. Mostly due to its Unpolished Anarchy and Sheer Raunchy Audacity.

Groucho is Unrestrained Attacking and Belittling His Son (Zeppo) and has One Scene with Thelma Todd (the College Widow) where He Threatens to "Kick her teeth down her throat". This is Raw Stuff even for the Marx Brothers.

The Tunes are little Catchy Ditties and Not Full Blown Productions like Their MGM Movies. "I'm Against It" and "Everyone Says I Love You" may not have Orchestral Accompaniment and Dancers, but are still Two Tunes that are Fondly Remembered and Recited Today.

This one is a Prime Example where the Brothers are an Entity Unto Themselves. They don't Break Rules, in the Marx Brothers World, there are "No Rules". This is Upper Echelon in the Brothers Pantheon of always Entertaining Films. Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and yes even Zeppo are all In Top Form.

Overall, it's Not as Smooth as some of Their Pictures but is a Funny Meter Masterpiece of Mayhem and Irreverence.

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.

Groucho takes control of Huxley College and gives football priority over everything else. That gives this hilarious satire a current edge overshadowing its more dated elements (like prohibition). Besides that, this is the only film actually starring the FOUR Marx Brothers. Zeppo's role remains small, but he has definite presence and provides key plot points. He even gets to sing "Everyone Says I Love You", written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. In fact, each brother takes a turn at that same song using different lyrics (with Harpo whistling, of course) in an effort to win sexy Thelma Todd's heart (among other things). This gives their musical numbers an integrity that's often missing, even in A Night at the Opera. Still, I'm not recommending the film for its musical content. Simply stated, Horse Feathers has some of the funniest wordplay ever written. Its wit is equal parts clever and corny, but never falls into the category of stupid. Combine this verbal mastery with outrageous and startling sight gags and you have a winner for the ages. My only complaint is that no one seems to have a complete print. Both the tape and DVD versions are missing some Harpo footage during a scene where the brothers converge in Thelma Todd's apartment. This same scene is nearly ruined by excessive splices. You need a shooting script to understand the dialogue. Yet even with these technical imperfections, Horse Feathers remains a must see. It's the best and purest example of Marxist comedy. Duck Soup, while brilliant, has nearly as much Leo McCarey in it as Marx Brothers. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but Duck Soup remains the only film I can easily see influences from past (or then contemporary) comedians. Again, that's why I place Horse Feathers first: for its purity.

There is some wonderful, goofy stuff here, but I read a few reviews where people claimed this was their favorite Marx movie. So I was expecting more. My vote goes to Animal Crackers, Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera. The latter contains Harpo's funniest stuff. Destroying an opera and it's sets.

A memorable extended sequence here involves Groucho on a romantic canoe ride. He croons a tune (nice), tosses his guitar in the drink (a hoot), and mocks his love interest who has adopted a grating baby-doll voice; "If widdle bay-bee girl doesn't stop tawking like that, daddy will kick her teeth down her thwote." (shocking and hysterical) Harpo's trade-hat which features the services he can be hired for changes to "Kidnapper" at one point. Too funny.

This one has the positively flimsiest plot of all the Marx bros movies. But it also has Chico's nicest piano solo. The football game at the end is pretty silly and very corny.

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.

So says Groucho on crashing a lecture. Horse Feathers is so quintessentially Marxian, so full of classic routines, from Groucho's brilliant song "Whatever it is, I'm against it" to "the password's Swordfish", and so on, that I risk a hernia each time I see it. The sketches featured are some of the finest ever put on screen.

Is it worth even recounting the plot? Let's just say the Marxes take over a college and subject it to total mayhem, all while wooing Thelma Todd, the college widow. Groucho putdowns abound - "I thought my razor was dull until I heard his speech." 4 great comedians - yes Zeppo too, at the top of their game. The football game at the end is one of Harpo's finest hours. What a unique performer he was. The Marx Brothers have stood the test of time with enduring comedy classics such as this.

And no, I don't know what a college widow is either...

"Whatever it is, I'm against it!" So says Groucho as he begins his term as Huxley's head of the college as he sings to his fellow staff and students which includes his son, Zeppo! This was another hilarious film involving The Four Marx Brothers with Chico and Harpo along to mess, er, help things along. All four also share a song-"Everyone Says I Love You" by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby-with the usual Chico and Harpo solos in piano and harp, respectively, but also with Groucho on guitar which he also previously played briefly in Monkey Business. They all get involved with "college widow" Thelma Todd so basically, they're ALL her love interest! While I thought the whole thing was nearly funny from beginning to end, the climatic football game wasn't as hilarious to me. Still, I highly enjoyed rewatching Horse Feathers again after nearly 20 years and that was good enough for me!

All right, class; what have we learned about college, thanks to the Marx Brothers classic "Horse Feathers"? We've learned:

1) College professors (Groucho) can sing whenever they want to.

2) Speakeasy workers (Chico) can be football heroes.

3) Silent guys (Harpo) are darned good harp players.

4) A professor's son (Zeppo) can be just about the same age as his dad.

5) A woman (Todd) can be in love with four men at the same time.

6) The password is "swordfish".

Besides that, you can learn some hilarious jokes and running gags (especially concerning ice), how to thoroughly disrupt a college class, earn a jackpot from a pay phone, play football with almost no adheration to the rules and how to take the low road to higher education, laughing all the way.

Kids, forget college. Just watch "Horse Feathers": that's all you need to learn in life. Look what it did for me!

Ten stars and a "college seal" for the movie that makes the best combined use of The Marx Brothers, college, football and one-liners than any other movie ever made! Guaranteed!

SWORDFISH!

Not really all that funny. Maybe I am too modern too enjoy a comedy of this vintage. (But I'm not really all THAT young! I wish!) I hadn't seen any Marx Brothers stuff for decades, and I remember liking it better than this. I'll have to check out some of their other films. Most of the musical numbers seemed extraneous, even though I know it was fairly customary for them, especially Harpo and Chico. And when did Groucho grow his mustache, and stop just putting shoe polish on his face? There was a good reflection on the times, what with the speakeasy scene, and the utter un-remark-ability of it. Overall, I'd say this is best left to fans.

It's my second favourite Marx Bros film of all, after Duck Soup, short and thin as it is - maybe a part for Margaret Dumont would have increased the running time by 10 minutes? Some of Groucho's best quips are here, by the end you feel many more were left out at the pace it goes. Why was the ice block scene cut in the first place, the '80's reconstruction although well-intentioned of course is so choppy to watch it would have made Luis Bunuel proud!

It's different from their other films in that Zeppo, Chico, Harpo and Groucho all get to individually perform "Everyone says I love you" their way. Groucho's romantic boating scene singing it to Thelma Todd is a gem of risqué surrealism, to me the best bit in the picture and after over 30 years of watching it an essential piece of furniture in my mind.

HF has faults - pardon me but - at times it looks like it was done on the hoof ... and not being sporty the football scenes fall slightly flat with me. But even if I could I wouldn't change a thing about this fast, fresh, exuberant hour of madness we have (apart the a/m ice block scene remaster).

Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Groucho Marx) is installed as the new president of Huxley College. His son Frank (Zeppo) is a womanizing college man fooling around with college widow Connie Bailey. Frank convinces his father to recruit football players at the speakeasy. Baravelli (Chico) and dogcatcher Pinky (Harpo) are "icemen" who deliver booze. Quincy owes them money and he makes them college men mistaking them for the star players. Connie is actually working for gangsters who are betting against Huxley in the big football game.

Groucho does the verbal and Harpo does the physical. Chico is great. Zeppo is a rather boring straight man. Time spent with him is a waste. He's actually an unnecessary character. This is classic Marx brothers hilarity. I love the guys (minus Zeppo).

When watching a Marx Brothers comedy,you can't concern yourself with plot or great acting.It's all slapstick and one liners and these guys were among the best ever at those comedy elements.Groucho Marx was the absolute master of the one liner and he's at his dead level best here.When you're as funny as these guys,your audience is simply too busy laughing to care about the plot,which is something about Groucho being the head of a university and trying to improve the school's awful football program.See? I just watched the film and I don't even know to a full degree what it was about.It's that inane,but the comedy element more than makes up for it.

Hilarious! This film is truly one of the greatest comedies ever made. And, if ranking on a scale of satirical over-the-top comedies, this is definitely in the top 5. Save only Duck Soup, this is the best Marx Brothers film in terms of the laughs. It's not meant to be taken seriously so all you have to do while watching is release your mind from the real world and suspend your disbelief to its max.

I suppose I feel a special connection with this film, mostly because I watch it and think this is the exact same kind of film that me and my friends would make. I know that, had I lived in the 30's and been fortunate enough to be a Marx, I would have been right up there with them. This is the film that really brings you in and makes you form a special relationship with the Marxes. "Horse Feathers" makes you feel like you're part of the action and incredibly close to the characters as though you are right there in the scene with them.