Horse Feathers

Horse Feathers (1932)

The Maddest Comics of the Screen!

Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against rival Darwin U.

Date of release
1932-08-19
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (260)
Runtime
1h 8m
Genres
Comedy, Romance
Director
Norman Z. McLeod

Casting

Interesting facts

Horse Feathers is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film starring the four Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd and David Landau. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone. Kalmar and Ruby also wrote the original songs for the film. Several of the film's gags were taken from the Marx Brothers' stage comedy from the 1900s, Fun in Hi Skule. The term horse feathers is U.S. slang for "nonsense, rubbish, balderdash," attributed originally to Billy DeBeck. As a work published in 1932 and renewed within 28 years, it will enter the public domain on January 1, 2028.

Production

The caricatures of the four brothers that are briefly flashed during the credits are taken from a promotional poster from their previous film, Monkey Business.

Production of the film was hindered when Chico was severely injured in a car accident, suffering a shattered knee and multiple broken ribs. This delayed production by more than two months and limited Chico's participation in filming.

As a result, the movie was filmed so that Chico was sitting down in the majority of scenes he was in. It required a body double to be used in some of the football scenes, most notably during the shot where the Four Marx Brothers chase a horse-drawn garbage wagon, climb in and head off in the opposite direction; Chico's double is taller than the other brothers by several inches.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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