Product Description

The quintessential Marx Brothers comedy. Groucho, Harpo, Chico and yes, Zeppo, are at their manic peak in this uproariously anarchic parody of college life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75680 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-08-05
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 68 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Imagine Groucho as the president of a college and Harpo and Chico as football players. It doesn't get much wackier than this. Horse feathers, indeed. Groucho is hilarious to watch as a hip professor. He's at his most rebellious singing "Whatever it is, I'm against it." Thelma Todd does some of her best vamping to help fix the big football game, which Harpo and Chico are supposed to throw. Naturally, the brothers have other ideas. For sheer laughter, this has to rate almost as high as Duck Soup, with the memorable speakeasy sequence, and the funniest football finale of all time, complete with banana peels and a chariot. --Bill Desowitz

Customer Reviews

One of the Best
I love this movie. There is minimal singing and dancing here, the only unbearable points being whenever Zeppo starts singing to Thelma Todd in his gimpy voice. Groucho for some reason is made a president of a university in this film, and he is as would be expected incredibly inadequate, and causes plenty of mayhem. Chico is a dopey Italian as usual, Harpo plays a dog catcher. Hoping to gain respect for his school, Groucho tries to hire football players, and accidentally hires Chico and Harpo, who have very funny moments in this film, particularly in the class room scene. Although people must have thought Harpo's love interest of horses in the first few films to be silly, imagine how it might be percepted these days, especially after movies like "The Animal".
A great movie, funny stuff, plenty of wit and humor. The movie seems to end pretty badly though, and I guess the writers couldn't find a good way to end it. I love the music though, all the brothers get to sing or play, and Groucho shows that he had a good knack for the guitar. Oh yeah, and Thelma Todd is nice to look at. Where do you think the drink "Hot Toddie" got it's name?
A last note: in 1932, when this movie was made, a book called Brave New World" by Huxley came out, and concerned a mutated futuristic species of sorts. Darwin wrote the theory of evolution, as a lot of people know. The schools Huxley and Darwin compete in the film. See the underlying theme of conflicting theories? Well....it's there.

The Four Marx Brothers at their very best; guaranteed laughs
This fast-moving comedy has Groucho Marx taking over a college. Zeppo advocates football on campus, so Harpo and Chico are recruited to kidnap the opposition's star players. In between, there are some inspired comedy sequences (including the Marxes' "schoolroom" vaudeville act) and some excellent musical performances. The harp solo is this writer's candidate for Harpo's all-time best, and Chico shoots the piano keys in a delightful rendition of "Collegiate." Lots of fun for comedy fans. The DVD, unfortunately, is no improvement on the VHS version: every copy of "Horse Feathers" has a damaged section containing numerous splices and choppy dialogue. The damage is very brief (maybe a minute or two) and shouldn't detract from your enjoyment. The surviving master print may not be perfect, but the film itself gets a perfect score.

Great film on an unfortunate dvd
Although I can't give this film anything else than a perfect five, I am disappointed with this release. I shelled out a small fortune to buy this on ebay, and it looks like it was transferred over from a VHS tape! Artisan and Universal need to get their act together. The Marx Brothers made five films with them: The Cocoanuts, Monkey Business, Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup. I think that The Cocoanuts and Monkey Business could easily fit onto one disc, and Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup could fit easily, too, with spare room for extra features. Although I paid an arm and a leg for this disc, I am glad I have it. I runs like a vhs, though. Stick it in-it plays a copyright protection warning after a few seconds of blackness, it does the Universal couple second intro to the movie, then it plays the movie. There are scene selections, but you just press skip on your remote, since there is no concrete main menu. Universal doesn't have any plans to re-release this, but I really hope they do. The film is excellent; this release is not. Thank you for taking the time to read my review and feel free to leave helpful/not helpful feedback.