The Marx Brothers
Marxology - Horse Feathers

Mikael Uhlin's Marxology @ marx-brothers.org

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The original version of this film contains abridgements of two sequences. The longer version may be lost today but was seen in Britain in the 1950's. Two other sequences were excised before the original release. In an e-mail I recieved on 31 January 2002, Kay Lhota says that the reason for the cut scenes was the tighter restrictions of the production code when the film was re-released in 1936. Paramount made the cuts on the original negative of that film and many others. Apparently the MPPDA number was added to the bottom of the credits, along with a "r" standing for rerelease. A worldwide search to find the material for MCA's video release in the 1990's could not come up with better film material.

The Dog-catcher

A scene in the film depicts Harpo producing a hot cup of coffee out of his trouser pocket to give to a down-and-outer who had asked for money to buy a cup of coffee. In the longer version of the film this scene was preceeded by Harpo catching three dogs.
First he lures one wire-terrier into his cart by simply letting it chase him there. Then he entices a police dog with a large portable lamppost which he sets up on the street. When the dog comes over to sniff at it, Harpo catches him in the net and places him in his wagon. Harpo repeats the process using a smaller lamppost and net in order to catch a puppy.

The College Widow

There has been some confusion over the years regarding the term "college widow". The American Thesaurus of Slang by Lester Berrey and Melvin van den Bark defines a college widow as "a non-college girl who goes with students". In A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles, William Craigie and James Hulbert says that it means "a young woman who stays about a college year after year in order to associate with men students". One of their sources adds that a college widow "is the unfortunate young woman, who, having been the pet of several college generations without making a single permanent capture, at last finds herself deserted of admirers, and with faded charms falls out of sight and memory". In his Constructive Analysis of Three Early Marx Brothers Films (published in "The Freedonia Gazette" issue S-1, Spring 1984), Dennis P. deLoof presents a possible literary source for Horse Feathers that is closely associated with the term "college widow". This source is a theatrical play by George Ade from 1904 that in fact was entitled The College Widow. The play has been filmed twice (1915 and 1927) and there's also a 1924 edition of the play (which has been the source used by deLoof). Both The College Widow and Horse Feathers are descriptions of college life. The play is set at the campus of and in the town surrounding Atwater College, whereas the events of the film occur on the campus of and in the vicinity of Huxley College. Both stories present students who have been enrolled only to play football. In the play Silent Murphy, a giant of a man, is registered in a special art course at four hours a week and he's soon accepted for the football team. In the film, it's clear from the dialogue that Mullen and MacHardie have been enrolled as Darwin students only to play on the team. Chico and Harpo have been hired by Groucho to play football for Huxley College but during the biology lecture they appear to be hopeless students. Bets are made on the outcomes of the respective games. In the play, railroad company executive Hiram Bolton bets $ 1,000 that the rival Bingham College will win the Thanksgiving Day football game. In the film, Jennings tells Connie Bailey that he has his bankroll bet on Darwin. Billy Bolton, son of Hiram, in his fourth year as a freshman has spent a great deal of time in college without making any progress. Frank Wagstaff (Zeppo) has spent twelve years in college without graduating. In both play and film college widows are seen as excercising negative influence. Hiram Bolton had wanted his son to play for Bingham College in the Thanksgiving Day game and accuses college widow Jane Witherspoon of using her feminine wiles to get Billy to join the Atwater team. Similarly, Groucho feels that the college widow Connie Bailey is interfering with his son's studies.

The scene with the Marx Brothers and Jennings trooping in and out of the apartment of Connie Bailey goes straight back to Napoleon's First Waterloo from I'll Say She Is! and originally had a longer ending. After several incidents, Jennings orders Groucho and Chico to leave and then leave himself. The abridged version of Horse Feathers ends it here but actually the sequence goes on.
Harpo has been hiding in the apartment and now leaps onto the couch beside Connie.
"What do you want?" she asks sharply. Harpo points at her.
"Are you a good boy?" Connie asks, and Harpo shakes his head.
"You're bashful," she observes, presumably because he hasn't spoken. In answer, Harpo nods, looks bashful, and stands on his head in Connie's lap. She cries for him to get off her and he does, sitting alongside her on the sofa with one foot tucked under him. She tells him to take his foot off the sofa. Harpo shakes his head defiantly and makes his 'gookie' expression, so she tries to pull it off. She slaps him, a knock is heard, and he pulls her on to his lap. It is Groucho looking for his hat and rubbers. Connie points in one direction while the hidden Harpo points in another. Connie seems to be slapping herself as Harpo's hands become playful.
"Come now, where's my hat?" asks Groucho and Connie seems to point in three directions at once. Groucho finds the rubbers on Harpo's feet, sticking out from underneath Connie, and mistakes them for hers. Eyeing the expanse of the muscular leg with the trousers rolled up, Groucho comments, "We could use you in the football team."
Groucho takes off the rubbers and tries to put them on his own feet, but Harpo's feet are so positioned that he puts them back where they came from, on Harpo. Groucho tells Connie he can't live without her, but Chico enters and interrupts. Finally Jennings comes in, telling Groucho he'll teach him to fool around with his girl. Connie jumps up, revealing Harpo, clutching a block of ice beneath her. Groucho crawls through a window with an open umbrella while Chico and Harpo dart out of the door. Arriving below the window, Chico encourages Groucho to jump. Harpo brings out a dog catcher's net to arrest his fall. At just this moment a dog runs by and Harpo starts after it with the net. Groucho leaps and falls to the ground with a sickening thud.

The Victory Bonfire

The Thanksgiving Day football game is the climax of both the play The College Widow and the film Horse Feathers. In the play, football coach Jack Larrabee gives a pep talk to the Atwater team before the second half of the game begins while in the film Groucho does the same with the Darwin team (saying that his own team would not listen to him). In both the play and the film a player is carried out of the game. In the play Hiram Bolton is kidnapped during the football game to prevent him from taking his son out of the contest, while in the film Chico and Harpo attempt to kidnap Mullen and MaHardie in order to keep them out of the game. The finale of the film was changed before the release but the pressbook for Horse Feathers completes the storyline about professor Wagstaff (Groucho) getting his son (Zeppo) out of college. According to the pressbook, the Huxley students tear the town apart for fuel and celebrate with a huge bonfire the night after the football game (which is a parallell to the victory celebration after the game in The College Widow). But Harpo decides the bonfire isn't big enough for such a sensational victory and his pyromaniacal book-burning bent in the film is carried to new heights as he sets fire to the college! Suddenly word comes that Jennings is trapped on the third floor. Groucho, cigar and all, runs into the blazing building amid cheers. He returns unexpectedly and hands a bystander his cigar.
"There's no smoking in the corridors", he explains, and rushes back into the building. He reappears - not with Jennings, but with a diploma for Zeppo (and thus finally gets his son out of college).
"I'll bet that'll burn Jennings up", he remarks as he retrieves his cigar butt.

Apart from reminiscences of The College Widow, the basic storyline of Horse Feathers also resembled College Daze, a Marxian film idea set on a campus from young Bert Granet. Granet also submitted another idea, The Seas Are Wet, about Marxian antics on a cruise ship. When Paramount first produced Monkey Business and then Horse Feathers without any acknowledgments or even the knowledge of Granet, he sued the film company. Paramount settled by hiring Granet as a screenwriter alongside Arthur Sheekman on a Bing Crosby picture. Later in life Granet and his wife Charlotte became two of Groucho's closest friends.

A still that has captured the burning college