Review of A Night at the Opera (1935) by Jonny P — 02 May 2012

It simply does not get any more classic than "A Night at the Opera." This Marx Brothers masterpiece will crack you up on the first, fifth, and fiftieth viewing. Classic moments like the stateroom scene are mixed with Groucho's quick-witted one-liners for 92 minutes of cinematic perfection ("Do you see that man eating spaghetti? Well, you see the spaghetti, don't you? Well behind that spaghetti is none other than Herman Gottlieb, manager of the New York Opera Company.

") The Marx Brothers are perfect in their typical (and delightfully anticipated) roles but the rest of the cast compliments them perfectly. Margaret Dumont's exasperation makes her the perfect "straight woman" for Groucho while Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones have fantastic voices that could qualify them as romantic leads in any film, and Siegfried Rumann is just plain awesome as Gottlieb.

The quality of the supporting cast does not take anything away from Groucho, Chico, and Harpo. Their antics during the performance of "Il Trovatore" (Take Me Out to the Ballgame in the pit, ripping the dancer's skirt on stage, "How would you like to feel the way she looks?") are unmatched, not to mention the impressive musical abilities of Chico and Harpo.

I love the musical numbers (particularly "Cosi Cosa"), whether they are the original songs written for the movie or the actual opera pieces. Above all, this is one of the greatest scripts ever written, creating classic scenes like the party-of-the-first-part-contract-scene and the stowaways-hidden-in-Groucho's-hotel-room-and-the-dumb-cop-can't-find-them-sequence.

From start to finish, "A Night at the Opera" is non-stop entertainment filled with jokes that become funnier every time that you hear them.