by Tony d’Ambra
Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Three clowns and a straight man. Anarchists all. Whatever it is, they’re against it.
Gonzo intellectual and all-round eccentric Slavoj Zizek from Slovenia has posted a short video on YouTube. For those who know what the appellation means – I can’t make head nor tail of it – Zizek is a Lacanian-Marxist philosopher. Quick, get me a four-year-old child. Zizek posits that Freud’s construction of the human psyche applies perfectly to the three erstwhile lunatics Groucho, Chico, and Harpo. The video is titled ‘How the Marx Brothers Embody Freud’s Id, Ego & Super-Ego’. I am not quite sure what to make of it, but let’s explore how the elephant got into Groucho’s pyjamas.
Zizek says Groucho, “with his nervous hyper-activity”, is superego.
I don’t know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is, I’m against it…
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it!
Chico “the rational guy, egotistic, calculating all the time”, is ego.
Professor Wagstaff: In case I never see you again, which would add ten years to my life, what would you fellas want to play football.
Baravelli: Well, first we want a football.
Professor Wagstaff: Well, I don’t know if we’ve got a football, but if I can find one, would you be interested? I don’t want a hasty answer, just sleep on it.
Baravelli: I no think I can sleep on a football.
And, “the weirdest of them all, Harpo, the mute guy, he doesn’t talk”, is id. “Freud said that drives are silent… The id in all its radical ambiguity… childishly innocent, just striving for pleasure… But, at the same time, possessed by some kind of primordial evil, aggressive all the time. And this unique combination of utter corruption and innocence is what the id is about.”
In Horse Feathers, in the speak-easy while Chico is in the back-room filling a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of Rye from the same container of hooch, Harpo passes a poker-game and when he overhears one of the players say “Cut the cards”, he pulls an axe from his raincoat and happily obliges. Later, Harpo stokes a raging fireplace with a spade filled from a pile of books. Indeed, the movie’s original ending which was cut (and replaced by the bigamous marriage scene with the three villains scrambling to be the first to hump their new bride) had the college burning to the ground after another fire lit by Harpo, while the musketeers play cards.
Some see a social critique of sorts in Horse Feathers, and you can pretty well read what you like into the narrative about college football, which is essentially only a pretext for a string of gags and absurdities melding irreverent and raunchy vaudeville with subversive attacks on authority.
The movie was a box-office smash in 1932, and both the in-crowd and the intelligentsia wasted no time in claiming the Marx Bros as their own. Stefan Kanfer laid out the critical response in his authoritative biography of Groucho (2000) quoting from articles in Le Monde, London’s New Statesman, and Time magazine, which had the boys on the cover of the August 13, 1932 issue, and referring to Groucho’s “unsquelchable effontry.” The left-leaning New Statement gave the reportage a surrealist twist: “They [the Marx Bros.] introduced the psychological disturbance that is caused by seeing something that is mad and aimless… something which, if not utterly disconnected, depends for its connections on the workings of the unconscious.”
Put simply, Horse Feathers is damned hilarious. Ask a four-year-old child.
How Horse Feathers made the Top 100:
Peter M. No. 9
John Greco No. 12
Samuel Wilson No. 21
Tony d’Ambra No. 21
Frank Aida No. 27
Bill Riley No. 28
Steve Mullen (Weeping Sam) No. 35
Sam Juliano No. 38
Jon Warner No. 41
Pedro Silva No. 42
Frank Gallo No. 52
Jamie Uhler No. 53
Wonderful Tony. Simply a great read here and a rather interesting and apropos discussion on Freud. I don’t really have an argument…..against it! Haha. This is damned hilarious and one of their best for sure and right in the middle of their prime that would cap with the following year’s Duck Soup, which I consider the greatest comedy of all time. There’s an incredible economy and buzz-saw like propulsion to these films of theirs during 1932-1933. This one’s only 68 minutes, but it’s a packed 68 minutes. Duck Soup is only 68 minutes as well. There’s very little filler.
Thanks Jon. Yes, with this one the stage is set for their greatest movie Duck Soup. The sad thing is Duck Soup bombed at the box office, with the audiences and critics turning their backs on a savage satire that cut too close to the bone. After that backlash, the Marxes compromised, and while producing three more great farces – At the Circus, A Day at the Races, and A Night at the Opera – the boys had been tamed.
I think the speed is what makes them hold up so well, though it might be why they didn’t do as well as the box office as a the MGM films – there’s no room to laugh. I think they tried to pace the later ones more like a stage show – leaving more time for the jokes to register, for people to laugh and stop laughing before the next joke came. (That’s what people say, anyway.) That, I imagine, works better, if you’re seeing it in a crowd, and you’re only seeing it once. But if you’re watching it on TV, or you’ve seen it 10 times, or you’re in a crowd that’s seen it 10 times each, the fast ones work better – you don’t need to leave space for the laughs, either because you’re alone, or you know where they are, and you don’t miss them. I certainly notice that the later ones seem to drag, just a bit, and these – and Monkey Business comes close to it, sometimes, too – still have no filler, no matter how many times you see them.
You must be channelling Thalberg WS
Again from Kefan’s bio on Groucho:
”
[After Duck Soup] Enter the cardsharp Chico Marx, with his customary timing and gall. He reminded Thalberg [at a bridge game] that the Brothers were at liberty. His bridge partner perked up. He had heard that Groucho was back in town. The other siblings were already here—why not have lunch at the Beverly Wilshire and talk things over?
The meal did not begin well. As Groucho remembered it, Thalberg opened with, “I would like to make some pictures with you fellows. I mean real pictures.”
Groucho instantly flared up. “What’s the matter with Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, and Duck Soup’? Are you going to sit there and tell me those weren’t funny?”
“Of course they were funny,” Thalberg responded. “But they weren’t movies. They weren’t about anything.” [Jerry Seinfeld wasn't the first...]
Harpo broke in. “People laughed, didn’t they? Duck Soup had as many laughs as any comedy ever made, including Chaplin’s.”
“That’s true, it was a very funny picture, but you don’t need that many laughs in a movie. I’ll make a picture with you fellows with half as many laughs—but I’ll put a legitimate story in it and I’ll bet it will gross twice as much as Duck Soup.”
“
I love the ‘stream of conciousness’ impressionistic approach that Tony has taken, giving the reader a far more sensory perception of what the film is about, rather than a straightforward approach that may wash redundantly. Probing under the surface for a Freudian interpretation, while never losing grasp of the essence, Tony has offered up a wholly novel investigation of an American classic by the prime purveyors of anarchy, anti-conformity and subversive humor. In the pantheon of Marxian screen work, DUCK SOUP and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA seem to always get a higher placement among the enthusiasts, but I have always felt this no-holds-barred zany film holds it’s own with the celebrated pair. There are just as many priceless one-lines and sight gags, and the presentation is just as inspired. As you note Tony, this is a 68 minute film with little filler’ and the humor can be appreciated by young and old. I love your use of dialogue, the integral you tube reference, the fabulous graphics, and that splendid still cap from a newspaper parchment that gives this the time-capsule look.
One of the countdown’s most original submissions, and on a too-often-taken-for-granted comedy masterpiece. Definitely one of my personal favorites of this countdown, one that has me wanting to drop everything and run home to watch this incomparable laughfest for the umteenth time.
Thanks Sam. Yes, “the humor can be appreciated by young and old”. I introduced my kids at a very young age to their antics – thus my final reference to a 4-yo. They were both mad fans and watched the Marxes countless times. They were so addicted, that they used to test me on which lines were from which movie, and they built a web site in homage. When they went on to school, they were flabbergasted that none of the other kids had heard of the Marx Bros., and thought me the coolest Dad…
Ha! That’s a great anecdote Tony, and with the web-site that followed some resounding devotion!
The attack on higher education and the implication that sports are more important at schools than academics does ring true. I’d say this is the most surrealistic of the Marx Brothers films, and the secret ‘swordfish’ password is one of the most inspired of the gags. Would love to seen even more of Margaret Dumont. I agree that Tony has done a terrific job in looking at the film with originality. I also agree it’s one of the best countdown pieces. Never understood why the other two Marx films were regarded more highly by most.
Peter I would argue that the lampooning and satire of war in Duck Soup probably makes it feel a bit “bigger” than Horse Feathers. I think the Marx Brothers take a larger bite with Duck Soup than in any other film.
Yes Jon, the boys took the plunge in Duck Soup, and were left to drown by Paramount. Luckily Irving Thalberg then at MGM threw them a life-saver – a real one
The boys were real-life jokers and Thalberg gave them a merry chase before he was pinned down. As Stefan Kanfer relates, “he was forever in story conferences on other movies” when the Marxes were trying to get A Night at the Opera in production. They finally got to see him, but only after – finding his door shut – Groucho, Chico, and Harpo each lit a cigar and blowing the smoke under Thalberg’s door loudly yelled “Fire!”.
Thanks Peter. The edge of the Marxes attack is blunted a bit by the weaker ending, and sadly the longer original feature with extra scenes of mayhem has been lost. Btw, Dumont was not in Horse Feathers. The very sexy and always obliging Thelma Todd played the college widow.
The different approach does pull you in, and when you are there you become immersed in all the wit, irreverence and zany puns. Like the Freud implication. And have always reveled in the hilarity surrounding the bits on the seals and the ice. My favorite of the plentiful puns: “The Lord Alps those who Alps themselves.” Quite the lively post!
Thanks Frank. The movie is full of brilliant one-liners. One of my favorites:
Thelma Todd: You’re perfectly safe, Professor, in this boat. (She is rowing!)
Groucho: I don’t know. I was going to get a flat bottom. But the girl at the boat-house didn’t have one…
Wayne Kostenbaum’s Anatomy of Harpo Marx makes Zizek look like a wire-service reviewer in the Friday paper. I’ve always felt that “I’m Against It/I Always Get My Man” should have been Groucho’s lifelong theme, but “Hello, I Must Be Going” is certainly easier to sing. If the Marxes are subversive of authority, it’s not because they embarrass stuffed shirts but because, given power, Groucho shows authority’s true face. That’s pretty good for a man with a paint mustache.
“If the Marxes are subversive of authority, it’s not because they embarrass stuffed shirts but because, given power, Groucho shows authority’s true face.”
SAMUEL: I’d say you pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one!
Nice Samuel! The reception to Duck Soup on its release is telling…
I loved the approach you took to this review, Tony! This really is fantastic stuff and I was, easily, engaged from the first sentence on!
I love this movie and have been a fan of the Brothers ever since I was “seriously” introduced to them by a co-worker of mine who was absolutely obsessed with their films. He would quote them often, speak of them lovingly and laugh till tears streamed down his face every time one of their films played on TV in the restaurant we both worked at. In some cases, we would rush through prep work in the morning so we could make time to watch the film later on that night (making the “assistant” staff cover the kitchen during the dinner rush-he and I sat the bar sipping beer and falling all over ourselves from the films hilarity).
That said, this is NOT my favorite Marx Brothers movie. I comes damned close and their is so much to admire and repeat again and again. However, if a gun were put to my head, I’d have to annoint A NIGHT AT THE OPERA my supreme favorite. This is small potatoes in the long run though as ANY of their films will immediately have me stop in my tracks when channel surfing and see me watch their films from any point till they conclude.
You really have to watch out for Groucho. One must listen very carefully to the head of the clans dialogue. If you sneeze, look away, cough or step out of the room for a second you could miss any one of a million little jabs and quickie jokes he’s leveling at the viewer like machine gun fire. He’s so quick witted and mercilessly anarchic and I love the hysterical bravado he brings to every sequence he’s in. He was an endless source of intellectual comic joy for me and remains one of my all time favorite screen funny men.
Thanks Dennis, and for bringing your enthusiasm to this thread. Your’e right, there are strong scenes in every Marx Bros movie. Harpo’s antics with the parking cop are every bit as subversively liberating as Groucho’s verbal assualts.
Very creative way to tackle this. I am also one who has been perplexed as to why this economical comedy has been behind the eight ball with Marx brothers enthusiasts. True, the songs in this (forced by studio execs) don’t do much. But the gags and line have machine-gun intensity. And the boys’ mayhem is inspired.
Thanks David. I think Groucho’s numbers are great and are deftly woven into his comic persona, and I always love Chico’s skilful piano interludes. Though I must admit to being impatient with Harpo’s harp scenes. Funny though, according to Kanfer, the boys by the time of Horse Feathers were ready to ditch these interludes as they saw them as interfering with the comic flow, but Studio bosses wanted them, arguing audiences expected them.
I like the music in this one, not as much as Duck Soup, but getting there. The boys are doing all the singing – that’s a good thing – and the songs are part of the comedy… Groucho’s song, and the way they all croon for Thelma Todd… Duck Soup obviously makes a point of dropping the piano and harp bits, but here they manage to make all of it fit in with the rest of the film pretty well.
Fair comment WS.