A Night at the Opera: Marx Brothers Movie Review
Comedy Has Moments But Pales Next to Team’s Earlier Paramount Films
May 11, 2009
A Night at the Opera is chiefly remembered for the iconic scene in which a luxury liner throng of chambermaids, steamship engineers, waiters and others come tumbling out of Groucho’s tiny, cramped stateroom.
But beyond that wonderfully absurdist moment, plus a few clever one-liners from Groucho, the 1935 film is a disappointment.
Zeppo Marx Replaced By Allan Jones
This was the first three-Marx movie; straight man Zeppo had bowed out after Duck Soup, the team’s last picture at Paramount and arguably the boys’ most satisfying film.
MGM production chief Irving Thalberg deliberately tinkered with the Marxes’ strategy of non-stop sight gags and one-liners. Groucho biographer Stefan Kanfer recounted an early conversation between the Marxes and Thalberg: “I’ll make a picture with you fellows,” he quoted Thalberg, “with half as many laughs – but I’ll put a legitimate story in it and I’ll bet it will gross twice as much as Duck Soup” (Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx by Stefan Kanfer, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000)
He was right – the film grossed $5 million in 1935 dollars – easily making it the brothers’ most successful film. Well, financially at least.
Thalberg changed the alchemy of Marx Brothers films by insisting on a love story, in this case between the snooty, patrician Kitty Carlisle and the bland Allan Jones as a pair of love-struck opera singers. In fact, Jones is effectively a stand-in for Zeppo: the bland “nice guy” somehow aligned with the wild boys.
George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind were among the film's various writers and shared the screenplay credit.
Margaret Dumont Back as Society Matron
There are plenty of nice Marxian touches, such as those great names – Groucho as Otis B. Driftwood, among others. And fortunately, Groucho’s great foil, Margaret Dumont, is back as another society dame too dense to grasp Groucho’s larcenous intentions.
Rounding out the key cast members are Sig Ruman as an opera company’s managing director and Walter Woolf King as an arrogant opera star with eyes for his leading lady, Carlisle.
The versatile, respected Sam Wood got the directing credit, although the uncredited Edmund Goulding had some hand in directing the picture, too. Wood’s range extended from comedies including The Devil and Miss Jones to heartfelt dramas including Goodbye Mr. Chips and Pride of the Yankees
This comedy’s general framework attempts to follow the boys’ earlier triumphs at Paramount: As Driftwood, Groucho is a wily business manager trying to hoodwink rich Mrs. Claypool (Dumont), who hopes $200,000 in opera patronage will earn her entry into New York society.
The action soon moves to a liner bound for New York, with Harpo and Chico as stowaways, something they’d previously done in Monkey Business.
Groucho’s Gags Among Film’s Too-Few High Points
Groucho doesn’t get nearly as many one-liners as he should, but they are refreshing breaks from the unwanted romance. Like when he’s handed a restaurant check: “Nine dollars and 40 cents? This is an outrage.” He drops it in front of his adoring, blonde dinner date: “If I were you I wouldn’t pay it.”
Or, to Margaret Dumont’s opera escort, Ruman: “And listen, Gottleib, nix on the lovemaking,” Groucho warns. “Because I saw Mrs. Claypool first. Of course, her mother really saw her first, but there’s no point in bringing the Civil War into this.”
Groucho and Chico Marx Engage in Classic Banter
In another scene, Groucho is trying to fool Chico, who questions a provision in an opera performance contract. Groucho: “Oh, that? Oh that’s the usual clause. That’s in every contract. That just says, it says, ‘If any of the parties participating in this contract are shown not to be in their right mind, the entire agreement is automatically nullified.’”
“Well,” replies the dubious Chico, “I dunno.”
“ It’s all right,” Groucho reassures him. “That’s in every contract. That’s what they call a ‘sanity clause.’”
Chico snorts, “You can’t fool me. There ain’t no sanity clause.”
The musical numbers, like when Carlisle sings the ballad Alone with operatic trills, are utterly wrong because they’re exactly the kind of scene the Marxes usually mock. They also stop the movie dead.
Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones Spoil the Fun
Carlisle always gave off the sense she was slumming in movies, and that’s especially true here. Allan Jones helps kill the fun, too, when he sings to Chico and Harpo’s accompaniment on piano and harp, respectively. When the scene turns into a giant shipboard dance sequence with a costumed troupe, you sense you’re not even seeing a Marx brothers movie anymore.
And when the brothers end up as allies, they shatter their own cardinal rule: to unpredictably turn on each other at a moment’s notice. This devastates the sense of anarchy that helped make their earlier Paramount films so hilarious.
At one point, Groucho speaks conspiratorially with the patrician Kitty Carlisle. At that moment, the film becomes incredibly anti-Marxian and has lost us.
The pace is slow, the musical interludes unwanted and embarrassing and even the incidental music sometimes betrays the Marxes by needlessly cueing the audience they’re watching a “silly scene.” Marx fans neither need nor want to be told when something is supposed to be funny.
Marx Brothers Mock Opera in Key Sequence
The set-piece, of course, is the big opera production of Il Trovatore, which the boys turn into a baseball game in the film’s big Marxian scene – complete with Groucho as a peanut-vendor in the aisles and his brothers playing ball in the orchestra pit.
It’s inevitable that Jones and Carlisle duet before the happy ending close – something no Marx fan should have to endure.
MGM fashioned a genuine hit for the Marx brothers with this film. But in doing so, Thalberg and the Metro machine de-fanged the trio. In a sense, this comedy is closer to a tragedy for Marx purists.
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