A Night at the Opera: Movie & DVD Review by Christopher Smith

(Originally published 2004)

The classic 1935 Marx Brothers hit "A Night at the Opera," which came out two years after their best film, "Duck Soup," bombed so badly at the box office, it provoked their studio, Paramount Pictures, to drop them.

After a period in which it seemed as if the brothers' film careers were finished, they were picked up by Irving Thalberg at MGM, whose idea it was to balance their slapstick with a romantic element that audiences could connect with, while in the process rounding out their notoriously thin plots.

The result is "Opera," with Sam Wood directing from a sharp, funny script by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, who wrote the brothers' Broadway smash, "Animal Crackers." What they created is a movie that allowed the brothers a high-end backdrop for their low-end antics. It was the right move, perfect for the times, then and now.

The movie stars Groucho Marx as Otis B. Driftwood, a shameless promoter who finds in the wealthy Mrs. Claypool (the wonderful Margaret Dumont, a mainstay in many of the brothers' films) the sort of stool who agrees to pay $200,000 for a shot at high society.

According to Driftwood, the best way into this closed world is by financing the New York Opera Company. Decked out in her diamonds and sandbagged by more cash than she can manage, the steadfast Claypool decides to go for it, braving Driftwood's rapid fire bon mots with a haughty air that creates something of a shell around her. The woman is impervious to the subplot building along the fringes.

In it, Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones are Rosa and Ricardo, wannabe opera stars in the making who are dumbstruck by their love for each other. Preventing them from achieving their dreams are the cruel head of the opera company, Hermann Gottlieb (Sig Ruman), and the preening opera star Rodolpho Lassparri (Walter Woolf King), who wants Rosa for himself in spite of all signs suggesting that he'd be happier waxing cute with Ricardo.

Around all of this whirls Chico and Harpo Marx, serving no real purpose other than to join Groucho in generating mayhem. But what mayhem. "A Night at the Opera" boasts scenes and dialogue that are so consistently alive and clever, they would fall apart if explored in print because what lifts them--nuance--would be lost.

What matters is their presence in the movie, how they are delivered by the brothers, and how the rest of the cast reacts. It's a delicate balance--and not one that was achieved without some work. Before a frame of the movie was shot, Wood and the brothers perfected the material on the road in audience rehearsals, tweaking the script to achieve the greatest number of laughs.

What's impressive is that in spite of being so wholly manufactured, the movie doesn't feel manufactured. It's quick and effortless, its energy never lagging in spite of having every reason to collapse.

What comes through in "A Night of the Opera" isn't just that the brothers came to have fun, but also to succeed. Fresh off the failure of "Duck Soup," this was their comeback movie. The effort shows.

Grade: A