Horse Feathers (1932)

Directed by Norman Z. McLeod. Starring Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, Thelma Todd, David Landau, Nat Pendleton, James Pierce.

The usual anarchic lunacy from the Marx Brothers, their best film yet at the time of its release. Plot, such as it is, involves new president of Huxley College, Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Groucho), trying to get professional players to join the school’s football team in order to beat their rival, but after a few misunderstandings, winds up recruiting Chico and Harpo instead. High ratio of laugh-out-loud bits to duds; sequence with high-traffic shenanigans in Todd’s room and climactic football game stand out as especially memorable. Zeppo is the wet blanket bore he usually was (and his sub-plot romancing a “college widow” goes nowhere), but at least most of the song/musical breaks are worth sitting through. Groucho would agree that if you don’t have a good time watching this one, “you’ve got the brain of a four-year old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it.”

81/100