HORSE FEATHERS
US, 1942, 75 minutes, Black-and-white.
The Four Marx Bros, Thelma Todd.
Directed by Norman McLeod.
This is the fourth film that the Marx Bros made at Paramount, Coconuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, and following this film, Duck Soup. They would then enter into contract with MGM, making four films with bigger budget, classics in their own way: a Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Go West, The Big Store. The 1930s were their heyday.
The brothers began as a singing group, on stage, vaudeville, mixture of parody, comedy, verbal wit, music… And the early Paramount films incorporated a number of their stage routines.
While there is something of a plot here, Groucho Marx becoming the head of the University College, concerned about his son, played by Zeppo Marx, a footballer in love with the widow, the widow’s father wanting to manipulate a football game and the President employing both Harpo and Chico as footballers but also with a commission to kidnap the star players from the opposition team (including character actor in many films, Nat Pendleton).
The film opens with a long sequence and a song, I’m Against It, the president opening the University year with all kinds of wisecracks and Groucho Marx comments and puns, the faculty sitting inmobile, then suddenly all the old professors joining in the song and dance routine. Later in the film there is the song, Everyone Says So, presented in various forms, including piano performance by Chico Marx. And, of course, some harp music from Harpo.
The performance by the Brothers is what we have come to expect and hope for. Groucho, false moustache, eyebrows, glasses, his stooped walk, the wisecracks, the puns, the romantic innuendos. Chico is more straightforward and a delight at the piano. Harpo, in these films always with an eye to the ladies. Thelma and told is the love interest, from Zepp’s in the daily lives is, Groucho inserting himself, and Harpo playing the guitar for her…
Some of the routines and the dialogue are still very funny, but, this is a record of the brothers and their distinctive comedy.
