Cinema Sunday: Horse Feathers

The last time I wrote about a Marx Brothers movie was Monkey Business which did not include no monkey and I wondered if I should sue.  This time, the Marx Brothers movie is Horse Feathers which does have a horse but the horse don't got no feathers so I'm thinking again I might need to sue somebody. 

I'm not sure why I'm writing this like Chico Marx.  

"Why don't you bore a hole in yourself and let the sap run out?"  
---Groucho Marx as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff 

Unlike Monkey Business, the Marx Brothers are more actively involved in the plot of Horse Feathers.  

Groucho Marx is  Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff who is the newly appointed President of Huxley College. How he got the job and why are not detailed here but Wagstaff's intentions as the head of the college are expressed in a musical number called "I'm Against It". 

"I don't care what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway;
Whatever it is, I'm against it!"

Zeppo Marx is inexplicably present  as Frank Wagstaff, the son of the new college president and a player on the college's woebegone football team.  Once more, I must ask as I did in the write up on Monkey Business, "Why is Zeppo Marx?"  

Chico Marx is on hand as Baravelli and Harpo Marx as Pinky who Professor Wagstaff erroneously hires as ringers to help propel Huxley's football team to a win over rival college Darwin. 

Wagstaff's scheme might have a chance at succeeding if Baravelli or Pinky had any demonstrable skills of being able to actually play football. Or any demonstrable knowledge of how football is played. Or any demonstrable awareness of what a football is.  

In the big game with Darwin, Pinky uses as a horse-drawn garbage wagon like a chariot to score a touchdown. I'm reasonably sure this is against the rules. But in a movie called Horse Feathers, it's good that we gotta horse in there somewhere.  

"You know you've got the brain of a four-year old child, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it."
---Groucho Marx as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff 

Also in Horse Feathers is Thelma Todd as Connie Bailey,a "College Widow" who is in fact not a widow. Apparently, a "College Widow" an early 20th century euphemism  for a young woman who makes one lucky college student feel warm and welcomed for a year.  "Warm and welcomed" is my euphemism for she has sex with him. 

Where the hell was my college widow when I went to college? I was dying to be warm and welcomed.  

Horse Feather was released in 1932 before the Hays Code took sex out of the movies. There some weird cuts and jumps in the movie due to subsequent edits due to censorship. The most noticeable jump cuts occur in the scene in which Groucho, Chico and Harpo visit Connie Bailey's apartment.

There is a really fun fourth wall break around this part of the movie. Chico is set to do one of his extended piano playing sequences (Harpo also gets with the harp as well) when Groucho walks up to the camera and says, "Look, I have to be here but there's no reason why you folks shouldn't just go to the lobby until this blows over."  

You know how "swordfish" is a frequently used password. There was a movie about computer hackers that came out about 20 odd years ago called "Swordfish". 

Using "swordfish" as a password got it start in  Horse Feathers. Professor Wagstaff goes to a speakeasy where Baravelli is working the door.   

Baravelli:
You can't come in unless you give the password.

Wagstaff:
Well, what is the password?

Baravelli:
Aw, no! You gotta tell me. Hey, I tell what I do. I give you three guesses. It's the name of a fish.

Wagstaff:
Is it Mary?

Baravelli:
Ha-ha. That's-a no fish.

Wagstaff:
She isn't, well, she drinks like one. Let me see. Is it sturgeon?

Baravelli:
Hey you crazy! Sturgeon, he's a doctor cuts you open when-a you sick. Now I give you one more chance.

Wagstaff:
I got it! Haddock!

Baravelli:
That's-a funny. I gotta haddock, too.

Wagstaff:
What do you take for a haddock?

Baravelli:
Well-a, sometimes I take-a aspirin, But you no guess it. Hey, what-sa matter, you no understand English? You can't come in here unless you say 'swordfish.' Now I'll give you one more guess.

Wagstaff:
[to himself] Swordfish, swordfish. [to Baravelli] I think I got it. Is it 'swordfish'?

Baravelli:
Hah! That's-a it! You guess it!

Wagstaff:
Pretty good, eh?

By the way, Horse Feathers is an early 20th century euphemism for nonsense.  Or in other words, horse shit. 

That's that for today's Cinema Sunday. Forthcoming posts will feature a Disney hand drawn animated feature from about 18 years ago, a classic song and dance classic with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and more Marx Brothers. 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another.