A Night at the Opera (film)

''A Night at the Opera'' is a 1935 American comedy film starring the Marx Brothers (Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx and Chico Marx), and featuring Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, and Walter Woolf King. It was the first of five films the Marx Brothers made under contract for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after their departure from Paramount Pictures, and the first after Zeppo left the act. The film was written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind from a story by James Kevin McGuinness, with additional uncredited dialogue by Al Boasberg. The film was directed by Sam Wood.

One of MGM's biggest hits at the 1935 box office, ''A Night at the Opera'' was selected in 1993 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".List of National Film Registry (1988-2003).
It is also included in the 2007 update of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, at number 85; and previously in AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs 2000 showing, at number 12.

Plot

At a restaurant in Milan, Italy, Mrs. Claypool, a wealthy widow, has apparently been stood-up for dinner by Otis B. Driftwood, her business manager. After she discovers him dining with another woman and seated directly behind her, Driftwood joins Mrs. Claypool and soon introduces her to Herman Gottlieb, director of the New York Opera Company, also dining at the restaurant. Driftwood has arranged for Mrs. Claypool to invest $200,000 in the opera company, allowing Gottlieb to engage Rodolfo Lassparri, the "greatest tenor since Caruso".

Backstage at the opera house, chorister Ricardo Baroni hires his best friend Fiorello to be his manager. Ricardo is in love with the soprano, Rosa Castaldi, who is also being courted by Lassparri. Driftwood arrives backstage and finds Lassparri attacking Tomasso, his dresser; Tomasso knocks Lassparri unconscious by hitting him over the head with a mallet. Fiorello appears and introduces himself to Driftwood as the manager of the "greatest tenor in the world". Driftwood, who believes Fiorello is referring to Lassparri (who is still lying unconscious at their feet), unwittingly signs Ricardo to a contract.

Soon, Driftwood, Mrs. Claypool, Rosa, Lassparri and Gottlieb all set sail from Italy to New York aboard an ocean liner. After bidding farewell to Rosa at the pier, Ricardo, Fiorello, and Tomasso stow away inside Driftwood's steamer trunk. After being discovered, Driftwood attempts to get the three of them to leave, as he is expecting a rendezvous with Mrs. Claypool. Fiorello refuses to go until they've eaten, and eventually Driftwood's very small stateroom is crowded with an assortment of people. (See '' Stateroom scene'' below.)

Later, Lassparri spots the three stowaways among the Italian immigrants on the ship, and they are caught and thrown into the brig. They escape with Driftwood's help and are able to sneak into the country by assuming the identities of three famous bearded aviators,The nationality of the aviators is never identified. In ''The Annotated Marx Brothers: A Filmgoer's Guide to In-Jokes, Obscure References and Sly Details'' (2015, McFarland, ), Matthew Coniam points out that the omission seems to have been intentional, in order to avoid an obvious lampoon of the Italian fascist aviator Italo Balbo, and that in the newspaper caption that follows they are identified as the "Santopoulos Brothers", suggesting that they may be Greek. (pp. 124-125) who are traveling aboard the ship. During a hero's welcome in New York, the stowaways are exposed as frauds and they flee, hiding out in Driftwood's hotel room while pursued by police sergeant Henderson.

Meanwhile, Rosa and Ricardo are reunited after he climbs in the window of her hotel room. Lassparri appears and after a physical altercation with Ricardo, both Rosa and Driftwood are fired from the opera company by Gottlieb. The boys decide to seek revenge by sabotaging the opening night performance of ''Il trovatore'' with various antics, climaxing with the abduction of Lassparri from the stage, which forces Gottlieb to substitute Ricardo and Rosa in his place. Mrs. Claypool and the audience clearly prefer Ricardo over Lassparri, and the latter is booed and hit with an apple after he is untied and attempts to return to the stage. The film ends with Driftwood and Fiorello negotiating another contract, as Rosa and Ricardo sing an encore.

Selected scenes

Stateroom scene

This scene was written primarily by legendary gag man Al Boasberg. Famously eccentric, Boasberg typed up the finished scene, then shredded the pages into thin pieces and tacked them to his ceiling. It took Irving Thalberg and the brothers hours to cut and paste the scene back together.

Driftwood plans a rendezvous with Mrs. Claypool in his stateroom. Then he finds out how small it is (a third class cabin, about the size of a janitor's closet), and that he, his steamer trunk, and the bed barely fit in it. Driftwood discovers that Fiorello, Tomasso, and Ricardo have stowed away in his steamer trunk and discarded his clothes. Fiorello insists on eating ("We getta food or we don't go"). Driftwood calls a steward ("I say, Stew") and orders dinner.

This continues until Fiorello and Tomasso each have ordered about a dozen hard-boiled eggs and Driftwood has ordered about everything else – including coffee to sober up some stewed prunes. This is just a set-up for the famous "Stateroom Scene", in which a total of 15 people crowd into Driftwood's tiny cabin.

The three stowaways have to hide out in the room while a parade of people walk in, asking to either use the cabin, or to perform their regular duties. Crammed into this little space at the end of the scene are Driftwood, Fiorello, Tomasso, Ricardo, two cleaning ladies who make up the bed, a manicurist (Manicurist: "Do you want your nails long or short?" Driftwood: "You better make them short, it's getting kind of crowded in here!"), a ship's engineer and his fat assistant, a young woman passenger using the phone to call her Aunt Minnie, a maid (Maid: "I come to mop up. Driftwood: "You'll have to start on the ceiling.") and four waiters with trays of hard-boiled eggs.
(Driftwood: "Tell Aunt Minnie to send up a bigger room.") All of the foregoing tumble out into the hallway when Mrs. Claypool opens the door.

Contract scene

The contract scene between Driftwood and Fiorello ("the party of the first part ..."):

Cast

* Groucho Marx as Otis B. Driftwood
* Harpo Marx as Tomasso
* Chico Marx as Fiorello
* Kitty Carlisle as Rosa Castaldi
* Allan Jones as Ricardo Baroni
* Margaret Dumont as Mrs. Claypool
* Sig Ruman as Herman Gottlieb

* Walter Woolf King as Rodolfo Lassparri
* Robert Emmett O'Connor as Sergeant Henderson
* Edward Keane as the Captain
* Purnell Pratt as the Mayor
* Harry Allen as doorman ''(uncredited)''
* Billy Gilbert as musician who asks Chico not to play the piano ''(uncredited)''
* Helen Grayco as girl who watches Chico play the piano ''(uncredited)''

Production

In an interview with Richard J. Anobile in ''The Marx Brothers Scrapbook'', Groucho said he was so appalled by an early draft of the script—which was apparently written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby