Is Groucho staring in another mirror? We’re getting a double dose of Marx Brothers with these two reviews.
Last time, we investigated the idea of comedies getting the short end of the stick. But when they're so well done—like Duck Soup, and now this one—they defy the odds.
That's why the comedies that make it onto lists like the AFI's are usually the ones that have proven their staying power. These are the films that can tickle the funny bone of any generation. And here we are with 1935's A Night at the Opera, written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, and directed by Sam Wood.
So, the Marx Brothers are back at it, delivering some of the best comedy ever. But as always, I like to dig into the message. Duck Soup, in fact, did wind up having one. But does A Night at the Opera have one too? It sure does.
This time, they’re taking shots at their own world: high society and entertainment. The message? "Show business is ridiculous." The film pokes fun at the pretentiousness of the opera world, the absurdity of social hierarchies, and the lengths people will go to maintain their status. And really, they should know all about it.
The Marx Brothers honed their craft in vaudeville, a breeding ground for perfecting comedy. Timing, bits, wordplay—they mastered it all and brought that mastery to the silver screen.
In the awesome and infamous stateroom scene, Groucho’s tiny cabin becomes like a clown car as more and more people squeeze in. Again, done impeccably.
The "sanity clause" bit is a perfect scene because they nail the timing and wordplay (I can only imagine the rewrites and the practice it must have taken to create it).
I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Groucho, Harpo, and Chico weren’t concerned with being cool—they just were. They refined their comedic skills to a point where they resonated with audiences across generations. Their satire hit universal truths that still hold up today.
A Night at the Opera is not a sequel to Duck Soup, but this article could be a sequel to the last one—mainly because I’m saying a lot of the same things I said before.
This is because the Marx Brothers found what they do perfectly, and they do it again and again. Two is almost an arbitrary number of their movies on the list, as A Night in Casablanca, Animal Crackers, At the Circus could all be included too.
Then again, maybe two is the perfect number because it shows they weren’t just a one-time thing. Duck Soup wasn’t an accident, and making these impeccable bits of comedy is something they do again and again—down to an art… or a science.
And with one like A Night at the Opera, they take their satirical finger and point it at themselves. As the Marx Brothers are most definitely not pretentious and aren’t trying to force viewpoints or dogmas, they have no problem making anything the point of comedy—including themselves.
I usually try to end these things with a funny line or something poignant, but in the interest of not taking things too seriously, instead, I’ll just end with this:
