Copious Notes

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.'

So, you think that a win-at-all-costs attitude is a new phenomenon in college sports? Ha! Has the Kentucky Theatre got a 1932 Marx Bros. movie for you.

Horse Feathers is part of a Marx double feature at 1:30 and 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, this week’s installment of the theatre’s summer classics series. The other feature is Duck Soup (1933), one of those movies that was considered a near bomb when it premiered, but is now regarded as a comedy classic.

Duck Soup is the one where Grouch Marx is appointed the leader of fictional Fredonia by a rich widow, played by Margaret Dumont. Harpo and Chico play spies from the rival state of Sylvania, and Zeppo is Groucho’s advisor who inadvertently helps him start a war — as only war can be waged in a Marx Bros. movie.

And in Horse Feathers, they play football as it can only be played in a Marx Bros. movie. Watch for the final touchdown. The film is about a football game between Darwin and Huxley colleges, and a lot of humor focuses on colleges stretching eligibility requirements to be competitive.

Of course, we relay all of this like people care about the plots of Marx Bros. movies.

Yes, Duck Soup has a pretty serious satire of war, and both movies poke fun at the new film censorship board of the day. But the real point of these films is classic comedy, like Duck Soup’s mirror scene and the speakeasy joke in Horse Feathers.

With these, the brothers’ last two films for Paramount, the quartet made Depression-era audiences howl with laughter. And today, the same thing will happen at the Kentucky.

Some things never change.