History Film / HorseFeathers

* MundandeUtility: Professor Wagstaff uses the telephone to crack nuts.

* ExpensiveGlassOfCrap: Served by a local speakeasy.

* ShoutOut: To Charles Darwin and his advocate Thomas Henry Huxley.

* TheCastShowoff: Not only do Harpo and Chico get to show off their musical skills with the harp and the piano, but even Groucho gets a turn with the guitar.

* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: Unsurprisingly, the movie has several scenes which do nothing but provide an excuse to show off Harpo's antics, such as Pinkie's encounter with the police officer who tries to write him up for blocking traffic.

-->'''Baravelli:''' "Well you're sister, she's a very sick man. You better come with us."

-->'''Baravelli:'' "You got a sister?"

* BlatantLies: When Pinky and Baravelli go to kidnap Darwin football players Mullen and McHardie, the following exchange takes place:
-->'''Baravelli:''' "We're looking for Mullen and McHardie."
-->'''McHardie:''' "That's us, what can we do for you?"

-->'''McHardie''' "No."
-->'''Baravelli'' "You got a sister?"
-->'''McHardie''' "Yeah."

-->'''McHardie:''' "Yeah? What happened to her?"
-->'''Barvelli:''' "She had an accident in her automobile."

-->'''McHardie''' "You will eh? Well I have no sister."
-->'''Chico:''' "That's alright, we no got a car. Come on."

-->'''Groucho:''' "Baravelli, whose responsible for this? Is this your picture?"

** The playbook, which Darwin College wants to steal, because they really want to win a football game for some reason. These are the kinds of details that don't matter in a Creator/MarxBrothers movie.

-->'''Groucho:''' "Baravelli, whose responsible for this? I this your picture?"

''Horse Feathers'' (1932) is the fourth Creator/MarxBrothers film, and arguably [[GrowingTheBeard their first classic]].

''Horse Feathers'' is the fourth Creator/MarxBrothers film, and arguably [[GrowingTheBeard their first classic]]. Groucho Marx plays the incoming president of Huxley College, Quincy Adams Wagstaff, while his son Frank (Zeppo Marx) divides his time between attending classes and wooing Connie Bailey (Thelma Todd), the local CollegeWidow. To turn around the school's declining fortunes, President Wagstaff tries to recruit two star football players from a local Speakeasy, but ends up signing the stockboy Baravelli (Chico Marx) and dog-catcher Pinkie (Harpo Marx) instead. Now they have to win an upcoming football game against the rival school, Darwin, who have hired pro ballers as ringers posing as students and recruited Bailey to retrieve the [[McGuffin secret Huxley playbook]].

* SecretWord: An entire scene is built around people unable to enter a room unless the say the secret password, which Wagstaff and Baravelli unknowingly keep saying.
* ShoutOut: to Charles Darwin and his advocate Thomas Henry Huxley.

'''''Horse Feathers''''' is the fourth Creator/MarxBrothers film, and arguably [[GrowingTheBeard their first classic]]. Groucho Marx plays the incoming president of Huxley College, Quincy Adams Wagstaff, while his son Frank (Zeppo Marx) divides his time between attending classes and wooing Connie Bailey (Thelma Todd), the local CollegeWidow. To turn around the school's declining fortunes, President Wagstaff tries to recruit two star football players from a local Speakeasy, but ends up signing the stockboy Baravelli (Chico Marx) and dog-catcher Pinkie (Harpo Marx) instead. Now they have to win an upcoming football game against the rival school, Darwin, who have hired pro ballers as ringers posing as students and recruited Bailey to retrieve the [[McGuffin secret Huxley playbook]].

''Horse Feathers'' is the fourth Creator/MarxBrothers film, and arguably [[GrowingTheBeard their first classic]]. Groucho Marx plays the incoming president of Huxley College, Quincy Adams Wagstaff, while his son Frank (Zeppo Marx) divides his time between attending classes and wooing Connie Bailey (Thelma Todd), the local CollegeWidow. To turn around the school's declining fortunes, President Wagstaff tries to recruit two star football players from a local Speakeasy, but ends up signing the stockboy Baravelli (Chico Marx) and dog-catcher Pinkie (Harpo Marx) instead. Now they have to win an upcoming football game against the rival school, Darwin, who have hired pro ballers as ringers posing as students and recruited Bailey to retrieve the [[McGuffin secret Huxley playbook]].

* GretzkyHasTheBall: Done deliberately, as there is no way anybody could possibly think that the referee would let somebody ride down the field in a chariot and use every spare football in it as a separate touchdown, no matter how much bribery was involved. Also, Huxley College received a kick-off from rival Darwin after scoring a touchdown, as opposed to kicking off to Darwin.[[note]]This is actually a bit of TruthInTelevision, since some college all-star games used to do this to make the contests more competitive.[[/note]]

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* BananaPeel: Harpo drops a whole bunch of them to trip up the opposing football players.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Groucho, during Chico's piano playing:
-->'''Groucho:''' I've got to stay here. But there's no reason why you folks shouldn't go out into the lobby 'til this thing blows over.

* FruitOfTheLoon: Harpo snacks on a banana with a reclosable peel.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: (Pointing to the backside of a horse) "That reminds me, I haven't seen my son all day."

* HavingAGayOldTime: "Are you making love to me?" Asks the college widow in bed, to Zeppo. In this time period, making love referred to the act of flirting instead of sex, which is just as well considering Groucho's remark about making love to crocodiles.

* MacGuffin: the playbook, which Darwin College wants to steal, because they really want to win a football game for some reason. These are the kinds of details that don't matter in a Marx Brothers movie.

* MarryThemAll: Inverted. The College Widow marries Groucho, Chico, and Harpo all in the same ceremony.
* OldFashionedRowboatDate: Groucho has a rowboat date with the CollegeWidow, who is trying to seduce him to steal information about an upcoming football game. The dialogue is anything but chaste, and the date ends with her falling into the water and Groucho wisecracking rather than saving her. Also, she was the one doing the rowing while Groucho sat under the parasol and sang to her.

* SecretWord: An entire scene is built around people unable to enter a room unless the say the secret pass word, which Groucho and Chico unknowingly keep saying.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Zeppo's character disappears prior to the end of the film. His subplot was meant to have been wrapped up during the MissingEpisode mentioned above.
** At one point the brothers interrupt a teacher while he is giving a class and Harpo and Chico bail him out of the room. They later return with his gown (and beard) but the teacher never returns and is never mentioned again.
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''Horse Feathers'' is the fourth MarxBrothers film, and arguably [[GrowingTheBeard their first classic]]. Groucho Marx plays the incoming president of Huxley College, Quincy Adams Wagstaff, who with his usual partners in crime confronts a win-at-all-costs football game with the rival school, Darwin. The bad guys have hired ringers, pro ballers posing as student athletes, and the campus widow is on the make and out for the [[McGuffin secret Huxley playbook]].

The whole thing is, admittedly, an excuse for the usual Marx family lunacy. It lacked the satirical edge of ''DuckSoup'' and the social relevance of ''ANightAtTheOpera'', but is forever beloved by college professors for its musical statement of administrative purpose: "Whatever it is, I'm against it!"

* CollegeWidow: probably the only movie centered around this idiom that people still watch.

* MissingEpisode: Several minutes of the movie were either cut or damaged, and thus lost forever (in a cinematic sense). As scripted and initially shot, the movie ended with the four brothers playing poker while Huxley College burned to the ground, although there is some question as to whether this ending was cut before or after the film's release.
** The scene in Connie's bedroom was sliced to ribbons by the Hays Office, hence the many abrupt cuts in the film as it survives today; the cut footage is now lost.