Night at the Opera, A, was the sixth feature motion picture to star the Marx Brothers and perhaps the comedy team’s best film. The movie was released in 1935 and had a larger budget than previous Marx Brothers films, permitting a more polished production. But the motion picture still revolved around the zany antics of the brothers.
A Night at the Opera starred Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx. As in the previous Marx Brothers movies, Groucho smoked a long cigar and insulted the other characters. Chico spoke with an Italian accent and played the piano. Harpo never spoke, pantomiming his material and playing the harp. A Night at the Opera was the first Marx Brothers film without Zeppo Marx, who had played romantic roles.
A Night at the Opera deals partly with the brothers creating havoc at an opera house, but the film was really a sequence of comic scenes that showed off the unique Marx Brothers madcap style. One famous scene took place in the tiny stateroom of an ocean liner, where one person after another squeezes into the small space.
The film includes several serious musical numbers sung by Allan Jones and Kitty Carlisle. The major supporting actors were Margaret Dumont, Walter Woolf King, and Sig Rumann. The director was Sam Wood. George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind wrote the screenplay.
See also Marx Brothers .
