Spend The Night: At The Opera

A Night At The Opera - (1935. Dir. Sam Wood)

Never mind the creaking dialogue from the supporting cast, the tenuous plot and the fact that Groucho aside the rest of the Marx Brothers aren’t actually very funny (please direct letters of disgust and calls for sacking to the editor, I don’t care what you think), A Night At The Opera is still a thing of quick witted and breakneck joy featuring some of the trio’s best gags. At the time of its release the team were treading on eggshells career-wise. Their last film for Paramount - Duck Soup - was a critical and commercial failure at the time (although in hindsight it is a work of flawed genius and one of their sparkiest and more surreal outings) and Groucho, Harpo and Chico were being written off as a spent force in some quarters. MGM took a risk signing the Brothers up for their next movie but the gamble paid dividends.With the deadweight of Zeppo, the teams superfluous straight man, dispatched the Marx Brothers had a rethink and were fully vindicated by the sheer silliness and hell for leather pacing of A Night At The Opera, a worldwide box office smash that earned them their place as all time comedy greats. While previous Marxist comedies were every bit as funny and revolutionary, the suffered from poor and stagey production values and there seemed to be no one at the helm to reign in the brother’s more self-conciously anarchic moments, brilliant as the were played out live and onstage they often missed the target on celluloid. A Night At The Opera is arguably the first ‘proper’ Marx brother’s movie. There’s a plot (well, sort of) for starters, a lavish budget and the comedy is honed to an armour piercing sharpness.In truth it’s Groucho’s movie throughout - show us a Marxist outing that isn’t and we’ll show you turn of Russia in 1918 - and every false mustachioed quip (“When I invite a woman to dinner, I expect her to look at my face. That's the price she has to pay”), witty flick of the cigar and lecherous advance to the leading lady/nemesis, the long suffering Margaret Dumont is diamond cut comic perfection. But Chico and Harpo also shine as the broader, more physical counterpoints to Groucho’s skewed genius. Where romantic interludes and crumby show tunes acted as an interlude between sketches in the first Marx movies here they bring a depth and act like welcome beta blockers to the manic highs at the heart of the film.The gags, though, are what the audience really want and nobody leaves this song and dance disappointed. As Otis B Driftwood, Groucho attempts to get grand old dame Mrs Claypool to fund his opera scheme. “Don't you see” he tells her during one unconvincing pitch for her support, “you'll be a patron of the opera. You'll get into society. Then, you can marry me and they'll kick you out of society, and all you've lost is $200,000”. His attempts to woo Mrs Claypool are doomed from the start, but there’s full Marx for trying.
Mrs. Claypool: Mr. Driftwood. I think we'd better keep everything on a business basis.
Driftwood (insulted): How do you like that? Every time I get romantic with you, you want to talk business. I don't know, there's something about me that brings out the business in every woman.
The film is an embarrassment of comic riches, both dialogue and sight based - one long scene, for instance, set in a tiny cabin onboard a ship will have you reaching for the rewind button at least twice, just to make sure you didn’t miss anything - it’s remarkable that absolutely nothing goes to waste. What looks effortless and spontaneous though, was in fact the end result of director Sam Wood’s insistence of upwards of 20 takes for each scene and, when filming had finished, dozens of test screenings to gauge audience reactions. Anything that didn’t raise the roof hit the cutting room floor. The film is 70 years old but is still as sassy, sarcastic and stupid, deeply, magnificently stupid as the day it was released. Little wonder it is still one of the most successful film comedies of all time. What makes it such a gem is the sheer energy of the cast involved. Harpo - then 47 - performed all his own stunts in the movie, including swinging by from rope to rope in the eaves of the opera house without a safety harness. Perhaps it was desperation to prove their worth an urge to cock a snook at their detractors, either way A Night At The Opera truly established the Marx Brother’s legend and in the process dragged comedy out of the music hall of the 19th century and into the cinema of the 20th.

The Food: Food gags abound in the film - “Senor Lassparri comes from a very famous family. His mother was a well known bass singer. And his father was the first man to stuff spaghetti with bicarbonate of soda, thus causing and curing indigestion at the same time” - and a hearty bowl of spaghetti Bolognaise seems perfectly and messily apt for such a jolly romp.

The Drink: For a pasta dish we’d suggest a nice Chianti and, since unexpected belly laughs often result in red wine on the carpet, a packet of Stain devil.