A Night at the Opera

Al Boasberg (additional dialogue)

James Kevin McGuinness (story)

***A Night at the Opera*** is a 1935 American comedy film starring the Marx Brothers, 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.

## Plot

In Milan, Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho), business manager for wealthy dowager Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont) has stood her up and is having dinner with another woman in the very same restaurant. When she discovers him seated directly behind her, Driftwood joins Mrs. Claypool, and introduces her to Herman Gottlieb (Sig Ruman), 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 (Walter Woolf King), the "greatest tenor since Caruso".

Backstage at the opera house, chorister Ricardo Baroni (Allan Jones) hires his best friend Fiorello (Chico) to be his manager. Ricardo is in love with the soprano, Rosa Castaldi (Kitty Carlisle), who is also being courted by Lassparri. Driftwood arrives and finds Lassparri attacking Tomasso, his dresser (Harpo), who knocks Lassparri unconscious by hitting him over the head with a mallet. Fiorello appears and identifies himself as the manager of the "greatest tenor in the world". Driftwood, mistakenly thinking Fiorello is referring to Lassparri, signs Ricardo to a contract.

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 tries 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.

Later, Lassparri spots the three stowaways among the immigrants on the ship, and they are caught and thrown into the brig. They escape with help from Driftwood and are able to sneak into the country by assuming the identities of three famous bearded aviators, who are traveling aboard the ship. During a hero's welcome in New York, the stowaways' true identities are discovered and they hide out in Driftwood's hotel room, pursued by police sergeant Henderson (Robert Emmett O'Connor).

Meanwhile, Ricardo is reunited with Rosa after climbing in the window of her hotel room. Ricardo has an altercation with Lassparri, which results in both Rosa and Driftwood being fired from the opera company by Gottlieb. The boys decide to seek revenge by sabotaging the opening night performance of *Il trovatore* climaxing with the abduction of Lassparri, which forces Gottlieb into substituting Ricardo and Rosa in his place. The audience clearly prefers 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 attempting to negotiate another contract, as Rosa and Ricardo sing an encore.

## 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)

## Musical numbers

* "Alone" (Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed)
* "Santa Lucia"
* "All I Do Is Dream of You"
* "Cosi-Cosa"
* "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
* Prelude to *Il trovatore*
* "Anvil Chorus" (from *Il trovatore*)
* "Stride la vampa" (from *Il trovatore*)
* "Di quella pira" (from *Il trovatore*)
* "Miserere", (From *Il trovatore*)
* "Stridono lassù" (from *Pagliacci*)

## Trivia

* 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". 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.
* At the suggestion of producer Irving Thalberg, the film marked a change of direction in the brothers' career. In their Paramount films, the brothers' characters were much more anarchic: they attacked almost anybody who was so unfortunate to cross their paths whether they deserved it or not, albeit comically. Thalberg, however, felt that this made the brothers unsympathetic, particularly to female filmgoers. So in the MGM films, the brothers were recast as more helpful characters, saving most of their comic attacks for the villains.
* Another idea which Thalberg consented to, was that before filming would commence on an upcoming picture, the Marx Brothers would try out the new material on the vaudeville stage, working on comic timing and learning which jokes and gags earned a laugh and which did not. Jokes were planted accordingly, so the laughs could be timed correctly. What was to become the famous "stateroom" scene was nearly eliminated because it was not getting any laughs. One evening the Marx Brothers threw away the script and ad-libbed the whole thing. As a result, a weak scene was transformed into one of their all-time classics.
* True to its title, the film includes adaptations of some real opera scenes from *I Pagliacci* and *Il Trovatore*, featuring the *Miserere* duet sung by Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones. The opera setting also allowed MGM to add big production song numbers (which were one of this studio's specialties), such as the song *Alone*, with the departure of the steamship, and the song *Cosi Cosa* with the Italian buffet and dancing.
* Carlisle and Jones were both trained in operatic singing and provided their own singing voices in the film. Walter Woolf King was a trained baritone, but he portrayed a tenor in the film. His singing was dubbed by Metropolitan Opera tenor Tandy MacKenzie.
* The film originally was to have begun with each of the Marx Brothers taking turns roaring instead of Leo the Lion (MGM's iconic mascot); Harpo was to have honked his horn. This unique opening was created, but not used in the released film because MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer felt the parody would cheapen the respected trademark. It turned up years later, however, in a re-release trailer for the film.
* A persistent rumor concerning *A Night at the Opera* involves the presence of the Marx Brothers' father Sam Marx (also known as "Frenchy") on the ship and on the dock, waving goodbye. Both Groucho and Harpo stated this as fact in their memoirs, and Leonard Maltin repeats it in the DVD commentary. But this could not have occurred, because Sam Marx had died in 1933, during pre-production of *Duck Soup*, two years before *A Night at the Opera* was released. The rumor arose because Frenchy had had such a cameo appearance in the Marx Brothers' earlier *Monkey Business*. There is, however, a reference to the Marx Brothers' mother, Minnie Marx, during the stateroom scene, in which a woman asks, "Is my Aunt Minnie in here?"
* Part of the concept of casting the Marx Brothers as stowaways on a ship was recycled from *Monkey Business*. As Groucho's and Margaret Dumont's characters are boarding the ocean liner, Dumont asks Groucho, "Are you sure you have everything, Otis?"; Groucho replies, "I've never had any complaints yet." In two different interviews with Dick Cavett on *The Dick Cavett Show – Comic Legends* DVD, Groucho claimed that that exchange of dialogue was banned in a majority of states when the film was released because it was too suggestive, although the number of states varied with different tellings of the story.
* In the scene where the three stowaways are impersonating "the three greatest aviators in the world", Driftwood seems to talk gibberish with the dignitaries. Actually it is English; if played backwards, it can be heard what they are saying ("This man is accusing you of being impostors", etc.). It was recorded normally, then reversed and dubbed over the scene in post-production.