Jul. 28, 2002 - 11:23 pm
everyone remember after i saw It's A Gift (1934) i meantioned how i wanted to see Horse Feathers? well i finally got to today. and it was so short. only 1 hour, 7 minutes in length. oh well. it was a wild hour and 7 minutes though. this is actually only the second Marx Brothers film i've seen. the other being of course Duck Soup (1933). there's no beating Duck Soup, but this film is excellent as well.
the basic premise to this comedy is that Groucho is the president of a university and is trying to keep the college from losing the big football game that's coming up. other than that it's all just wild antics. things like Harpo deciding to throw a random book into a burning fireplace. cut to someone else...cut back to harpo with a snow shovel throwing books from a huge pile (bookshelves now entirely empty) into the fireplace which is now blazing. don't try to make sense of it. it's just insane and because of that, extremely funny.
i think my favorite parts of this film were where we see Chico and Harpo playing their respective instruments to the film's "theme song" which is "Everyone Says I Love You." Chico sings and plays the piano and we get great shots of his hands playing. you've never seen anyone play the instrument like he does with his personally developed finger-pecking style. it's beautiful to watch. and then there's Harpo who of course plays the harp. breathtaking harp playing. apparently audiences used to cry when they would hear him play this thing. these two scenes are outstanding to see in an otherwise hilarious film.
another interesting thing about Harpo's harp playing is that he, like Chico, was self-taught. and he plays the harp backwards. he apparently didn't realize that he was teaching himself to play it backwards, and years later was asked by many people to be taught in his innovative style.
other interesting info dealing with this movie: the title of the film Swordfish (2001) was taken from this film. it's the password that Groucho has to guess in order to get into Chico's speakeasy. also if anyone else other than me has seen Woody Allen's musical film Everyone Says I Love You (1996), it has many references to this film. the title of course comes from the theme song for Horse Feathers. and at the end of Woody Allen's picture there is a "Groucho Party" where everyone in attendance is dressed up like Groucho and of course sings and dances.
you may ask why has Mark seen Everyone Says I Love You when he really doesn't like Woody Allen that much, nor does he like musicals that much. answer: the film has one fascinating member in the supporting cast pictured here.
