Review of A Night at the Opera (1935) by Adam F — 31 Jul 2010

The amazing thing about all (or most) of the Marx brothers film is how well they've held up against the passage of time. Most of the jokes still work for a modern audience and their act is so wonderfully varied that even if you didn't like one aspect of it a new one is right around the corner. For my money, I like A Night At The Opera over Duck Soup simply because the third act is a perfect climax of everything that's come before and it features pure balls-to-the-wall hilarity.

If you're unfamiliar with the Marx Brothers and find the Internet to be a scary place filled with fast moving pictures and unfortunately underfunded Libyan princes, there are four players you need to be aware of: Groucho Marx, the witty one; Harpo Marx, the mute one; Chico Marx, the Italian one; and Zeppo Marx, the unfunny one. An added bonus that Night has over Duck Soup is the notable absence of Zeppo, meaning that the three funny brothers get more screen time and thus more hilarity. Yet, no movie maker is without their moronic ideas, so the boys at MGM decided to include a lovestruck couple who occassionaly try to strangle the comedy to death in favor of a love plot nobody cares about through the tried-and-true method of random singing. In their defense, it is mildly amusing to watch their lips erotically zip into a mute hyperdrive as you fastfoward to the better parts of the movie.

Although my favorite Marx brothers are by far Harpo and Groucho, I will defend Chico's entrancing performances on the piano as the best moments of any of their films. I often find my self eagerly awaiting his performance and anticipating what crazy antics will follow (thus far I rate the performance in Animal Crackers to be the best. This was my first encounter with Chico's unique playing style)--it's so unnaturally engaging that even as a musician I'm spellbound--so it has a special place in my heart. Harpo's okay, but it just doesn't have that same quality of "Holy shit, how is he doing that" as Chico's does.

Of the half-dozen or so Marx brothers films I have seen, this one and Duck Soup seem to take out all the stops, except of course for the painfully shitty love story. Groucho's walk is even more exaggeratted than usual (his run in the first scene is so wacky it's surreal), his wit is as sharp and cutting as ever, and when Harpo bats a ball with a violin and climbs up a curtain at the end I lost control of several bodily functions. It almost becomes a cartoon and since I'm into that kind of humor this movie really works for me. No, it's not sophisticated, sip-your-wine-and-bang-your-mistress kind of humor, but I like it dammit and most people probably will too. It's a vast improvement over most of the comedy that's forced down our throats nowadays and it's a breath of fresh air to see something that knows what comedy is. This film actually got me interested in many of the old comedy teams like Abbott and Costello so consider it a "gateway" movie. I'm being far more serious than usual with this review, but if you don't like it rent this movie cause it more than makes up for it.