A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

US, 1935, 90 minutes. Black and white.
The Marx Brothers, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Walter Woolf King, Sig Ruman, Margaret Dumont, Robert Emmett O’ Connor.
Directed by Sam Wood.

Many consider A Night at the Opera the Marx Brothers’ best film. It certainly was one of their most popular. Many critics liked their more surreal films like The Cocoanuts or Duck Soup.

After making a number of films at Paramount, the Marx Brothers went to MGM. Their films there include A Day at the Races, At the Circus, Go West and The Big Store. Later they were to make A Night in Casablanca, appear in Love Happy and have historic roles in the rather absurd The Story of Mankind.

The film gives opportunity for each of the brothers to show his talent. Groucho Marx’s Otis Driftwood is a conman, full of sly remarks, double entendres (a bit surprising given the Motion Picture Code coming into force at this time), comedy routines, especially the conning of Margaret Dumont who is at her best in this film playing her usual kind of dowager role. Chico has some funny verbal comedy and has the opportunity to play the piano, variations on All Night Through. Harpo also plays the piano as well as playing the harp, a variation on the song Alone by Herb Nacio Brown and Arthur Freed. There is also a lively song Cosi Cosa sung by Allan Jones with Italian migrants on a boat to the United States.

The popular ingredients, even formula material, is all here. However, there are comedy routines that stand out including Groucho’s dining with another woman facing away from Margaret Dumont in the opening of the film, the discussions about contracts and tearing them up and the sanity clause, the famous stateroom cabin scene where everybody is crammed in and Margaret Dumont opens the door and they all fall out (it is rather briefer than many people’s memories might have of it). There is also a scene where the detective is bamboozled by the brothers moving the beds secretly from one room to another. And there is also the climax at the opera, complete mayhem during Il Trovatore, the playing of Take Me Out To The Ball Game, an exasperated Sig Ruman as the impresario finally agreeing that Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones can star in the opera. Walter Woolf King is the snarling villain singer.

The film was directed by Sam Wood, a veteran of many MGM films and a variety of styles of film. His work includes For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Pride of the Yankees and The Stratton Story.

A Night at the Opera is certainly a very good introduction to the work of the Marx Brothers – though many of the films might not measure up in comparison.