A Night at the Opera

The Marx Brothers' first film after moving to MGM. The subject is the opera world: two young singers are in love, one cannot get a chance, and the other has to work with the company's arrogant star tenor. The Marx Brothers step in to break that order. The importance of the production is in its form. In their earlier films the narrative existed only to connect the jokes. Here the producer Irving Thalberg set a rule: there would be a love story, a proper plot and musical numbers, and the comedy would sit inside them. The scenes were also tried out in front of theatre audiences first, and lines that did not get a laugh were changed. The best-known passage is the stateroom scene on the ship: people enter a small cabin one after another until the room is completely full. It is among the most cited sequences in the history of comedy. Groucho, Chico and Harpo lead; the fourth brother, Zeppo, is no longer in the team from this film onwards. Sam Wood directed. One of the foundational films of its kind for anyone who likes classic comedy and verbal humour. Some viewers will find the musical numbers unnecessary; the film balances comedy and musical deliberately.