Horse Feathers

Movie Information

In Brief: The Four Marx Brothers descend upon Huxley College where Groucho has mystifyingly become president. Before they're through with it, it's safe to say that college, football and the institution of marriage will never be the same. In the running for the boys' very best film.
Score:

Genre: Musical Comedy
Director: Norman McLeod
Starring: The Four Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd, David Landau, Nat Pendleton
Rated: NR

When this was run last year, I wrote: ” In one of their most anarchic films, Horse Feathers (1932), the Marx Brothers take on higher learning—and higher learning loses. Here’s the idea: Groucho has become (through goodness-knows-what process) the president of Huxley College, despite making sport of his predecessor and the entire faculty, even singing a song where he tells them not to bother making suggestions, ‘Whatever it is, I’m against it.’ His son (Zeppo) is a student at said college, and he convinces his father to hire professional football players to bolster the school’s perpetually losing team.” Full review here:  http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/horse_feathers

 

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About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

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6 thoughts on “Horse Feathers

  1. Jeremy Dylan

    I love this movie! My first exposure to the Marx Brothers. I never looked back.

  2. Ken Hanke

    My first was The Cocoanuts, but I was so young all I really remember from that encounter was Harpo eating the telephone. Of course, I’m from those prehistoric days when you had to just wait for some TV station to run them.

  3. Jeremy Dylan

    Mine was a VHS tape I cajoled my mother into buying for me at the age of about nine or ten.

  4. Ken Hanke

    Well, it turns out that Chip Kaufmann and I got our wires crossed and the HFS is running Monkey Business and not Horse Feathers. It’s almost a wash in terms of quality — and there’s a lot to be said for Four Marx Bros. trying to get off a ship by all claiming to be Maurice Chevalier.

  5. Chip Kaufmann

    My apologies for sending out the wrong copy but Ken’s right…it’s pretty much a wash in terms of quality. The password may not be “swordfish” in MONKEY BUSINESS but “If a nightengale could sing like you, they’d sing much sweeter than they do”.

  6. Ken Hanke

    Probably safer not to invoke the actual song title, lest folks get the wrong idea.

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