Tagline: Don’t miss it! The funniest picture ever made!
A Night at the Opera movie storyline. Mayhem ensues when the Marx brothers enter the world of opera. Otis B. Driftwood is helping Mrs. Claypool enter society and gets her to make a major donation to an opera company. Opera company Managing Director Mr. Gottlieb signs a leading tenor, Rodolfo Lasspari, to sing in New York and he in turn convinces his current co-star Rosa to come with him.
She however is in love with Ricardo, also a tenor but unknown and only a member of the chorus. Ricardo and his manager stow away aboard the ship carrying everyone to New York. When none of their plans work out, they ensure that the opera company’s presentation of Il Trovatore is one the audience will never forget.
A Night at the Opera (1935), a musical comedy, is the sixth of thirteen Marx Brothers feature films. A Night at the Opera is universally considered to be the Marx Brothers’ best and most popular film, and it received critical acclaim when released. By bringing their comedy sequences, musical numbers, and plot line (a love story) up to higher standards, the film also proved to be a tremendous financial success.
In homage to this film, the mid-70s raunchy, mock opera rock band Queen, with lead singer Freddie Mercury, named its fourth album after this film. [They also named their next album after another Marx Bros. film, A Day at the Races.]
The less anarchic, solidly-believable plot and slapstick comedy of this Marx Brothers film (the first one without straight-man Zeppo) was derived from a well-developed screenplay written specifically for them by two of their best writers ever, playwrights George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind (who had previously worked with them on The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930)).
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Directed by: Sam Wood, Edmund Goulding
Starring: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Walter Woolf King, Sig Ruman, Margaret Dumont, Edward Keane, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Enrique Acosta, Harry Allen
Screenplay by: George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind
Cinematography by: Merritt B. Gerstad
Film Editing by: William LeVanway
Makeup Department: Robert J. Schiffer
Art Direction by: Cedric Gibbons
Music by: Herbert Stothart
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release Date: November 15, 1935
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