Starring: The Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo), Thelma Todd, Reginald Barlow
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Available as part of the Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection from Amazon.
A hilarious movie centering mainly around college football, and the upcoming game between Darwin and Huxley Colleges. The jokes about the amateur status of collegiate football players, and how the eligibility rules are always stretched (if not outright broken) by colleges are surprisingly timeless.
Groucho is Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley College. His son Frank (Zeppo) is a student there, and he talks his dad into recruiting professional football players to improve the Huxley team's chances of winning. Somehow, Wagstaff ends up accidentally recruiting two "icemen" from a nearby speakeasy, Baravelli (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo). They also have to enroll at Huxley as students, with the usual comic results, complete with Wagstaff clowning around alongside them.
Baravelli and Pinky are sent to kidnap two of Darwin's star players to keep them from playing in the big game, but it backfires on them, and they get tied up with their clothes stolen. They saw their way through the floor, inspiring a million future Looney Tunes, and rush to the contest, where the brothers even use a horse-drawn chariot into the end zone.
There are some lost scenes from the movie, due to censorship or damage, including one notable scene where the brothers calmly play poker while the college burns down around them. However, a still picture survived for those curious:
Highly recommended.
Also, never forget the password, "swordfish".
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