Horse Feathers

Horse Feathers
August 19, 1932
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B+

Why is this so much better than Monkey Business?  After all, it's got the same director, stars, leading lady, and some of the same writers.  (Johnstone, Perelman, and Sheekman, the last appearing uncredited as Typing Sportswriter.)  Yes, it helps that Kalmar & Ruby are doing the music, as they did for Animal Crackers.  We again have a great Groucho-introduction song, this time "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It."  And the song repeated this time, with every Brother giving it at least one rendition, is the marvelous "Everyone Says I Love You."  But the writing is overall stronger, perhaps because the setting of a college is the best yet.

I'm sure this wasn't the first, and it definitely wouldn't be the last, movie to feature college students who look far too old for college.  At least thirty-one-year-old Zeppo has an excuse, since his character has been in one college for twelve years.  Groucho was then forty-one and he's playing Zeppo's father!  Some of the best moments in the movie are Groucho insulting his son, who's "a disgrace to the name of Wagstaff, if such a thing is possible."  At one point, Groucho points to a picture of a horse (guess what part) and is reminded of Zeppo!

Yes, we're still happily living in pre-Code times, most notably with anything to do with Thelma Todd's character of the "college widow."  All the Brothers and the villain flirt (or more) with her, and the movie actually ends with Groucho, Chico, and Harpo pushing the groom, presumably Zeppo, out of the way so they can all marry her!  She's gorgeous in this movie (in one slinky outfit after another) and seems to be having a better time than in Monkey B, especially during Chico's "music lesson," which Groucho tells us we can go to the lobby to avoid.  The bedroom-farcical scene that this is part of is my favorite, although the opening is a close second.  I love how eventually Harpo just walks along the top of the couch and throws ice out the window, as Groucho and Chico put the moves on Thelma.  This scene is choppy, due to age and later censorship (there's a butchered exchange where Thelma says, "Baravelli, you overcome me," and Chico says, "All right, but remember, it was your idea," which you can still catch with the subtitles on), but it's still hilarious.

Meanwhile, there's a class with Professor Robert Greig, a speakeasy, and a whole lot of nonsense, or horse feathers.  That's what the title means, although Zeppo's portrait is part of it, as is Harpo's abiding love for horses (he had a picture of one as his true love in Animal Crackers), and of course the chariot-riding towards the end.

The whole thing of the importance of football on campus would insure that this movie will probably never become fully dated, bootlegging and college widow notwithstanding.  It is very '30s of course, with a "bum" telling Harpo he wants a cup of coffee.  Guess what Harpo pulls out of his magical coat?  And guess what Groucho throws to Thelma when she's drowning?