Linbeymusol
Wonderful character development!
Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
ChicRawIdol
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
framptonhollis
The interesting thing about "A Night at the Opera" is how much of a genuine, cliché plot it has. There is an obvious villain and protagonist, and both have goals that end in nothing but predictability. However, it gets interesting when the main attraction, that being the brilliant wit of the Marx Brothers, steps in. Every character other than these three wonderful, wild buffoons, is of a cliché and predictable nature, but they certainly aren't! While everyone else is playing it straight, they prove that they're still the same old Marx Brothers as they showcase some of their most hilarious and creative gags. I just find it truly unique and entertaining how this film feels as if its trying to be a predictable and heartwarming musical, but it keeps being interrupted by the absolutely unpredictable creativity of the Marx Brothers. The fact that everybody else is playing it so straight just adds to the great comedy here. Its all so creative and fantastic, and it is all the more creative and all the more fantastic when it is set up against the backdrop of what would normally be considered a melodramatic Hollywood musical!
jmacpep
If you have kids, you have to introduce them to the Marx Bros and this one and a Day at the Races are the best for that. The dialog is super clever and meant for adults but the kids eat up the action. They will have better senses of humor and will more likely grow up to be better people. A Night at the Opera is just plain fun. If you think its not funny then go back and lay down in your casket. The Marx Bros did to opera what it deserves. The contract scene should be a standard in any law course. You can go on and on. A true masterpiece. I love Duck Soup but this is the great one and there never has been anything close. I have seen it 30 times, know much of it by heart and every time I see it, I laugh. And I always feel a lot better afterward.
ma-cortes
Amusing and entertaining Marx picture , it has a lot of funny material and unfortunately intrusive songs . Groucho's wisecracks and the incomparable Chico and Harpo carry the movie . It deals with a sly business manager named Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) and two (Chico Marx as Fiorello and Harpo Marx as Tomasso) wacky friends of two (Kitty Carlisle as Rosa and Allan Jones as Ricardo) opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies . Later on , Marx Brothers anarchize the opera , insulting and mocking the guests and players . Their actions include some on stage antics during the stage debut , as they arrange for the normal tenor to be absent so that the young lover named Ricardo can get his chance . Classic Marx film with many funny sequences , this is the most sustained bit of insanity , full of crazy gags , antics and amusement , being now deemed a satiric masterpiece ,and one of the biggest hits . Although it suffers from staginess and musical comedy plotting but gives the zany threesome plenty of comic elaboration . Enough gags for give several movies , but our favorite is still the cabin scene . Despite the abundant songs and silly as well as sappy love story the movie maintains itself very well . This is a fun comedy as hilariously amusing as the films they made at Paramount with Zeppo . This is a M.G.M production lavishly financed by Irving Thalberg . Excellent Harpo Marx , as usual , he even did many of his own stunts , he later said it was a silly thing for a 47-year-old non-stuntman to have done . Groucho said that this was his favorite among his movies . The Marx Bros (minus Zeppo) are in peak form in this vintage musical comedy with co-star the legendary Margaret Dumont , including sparkling dialogs with Groucho . Furthermore , Sig Ruman makes his first of three appearances in The Marx Brothers films. However , this is the first Marx Brothers film made without brother Zeppo Marx, it started a new trend of The Marx Brothers movies featuring a Zeppo-like supporting character who carries the love story and sings the song . The motion picture was well directed by Sam Wood . Sam Wood, freshman The Marx Brothers director in this film, was a perfectionist , the scene in which Harpo Marx hangs from the rope was filmed so many times that Harpo Marx's hands became cut and swollen from the rope . Don't miss it , one of the funniest picture ever made by Marx BrothersOther important films starred by Marx Brothers -many of them Broadway farce plays transfered by scenarists into vehicle for the Brothres- , they are the followings : ¨Animal crackers¨, ¨Duck soap¨ that was a flop when first released but today considered a masterpiece , ¨Horse Feathers¨, ¨At the circus¨, ¨Day at the races¨ , ¨Room service¨ , ¨Go West¨, ¨Love Happy¨ and ¨Night in Casablanca¨, though in 1946 the Marx formula was wearing thin . Any film with Groucho , Chico , Harpo and Zeppo is well worth seeing .
tavm
Two years after making their last Paramount film, Duck Soup, the remaining Marx brothers-Groucho, Chico, and Harpo since Zeppo left-ended up at M-G-M after Chico played bridge with head of production Irving G. Thalberg and made a deal with him. With Thalberg on board, there would now be more production-meaning more story, more balance of comedy and drama with the juvenile leads and more music other than those of the Marx siblings. So now we have Allan Jones and Kitty Carlisle as the romantic leads who we're supposed to care about and who are cared for by these brothers. They're actually not bad both acting and singing-wise even if you're not a fan of opera as I'm certainly not. We also have Walter Woolf King as the villain which is proved when he mistreats Harpo. But while there's not as much comedy as in their previous Paramount offerings, there's still enough of it that you laugh as much and as loud as in those earlier efforts. And not only does Groucho woo and insult Margaret Dumont delightedly again to wondrous effect here, Sig Ruman as an opera financier and Robert Emment O'Connor as a cop also provide their own great comic moments to the Marxes. Oh, and after being absent in Duck Soup, once again Chico plays his piano and Harpo his harp to entertaining results with the children watching and laughing at them an added pleasure. Oh, and Harpo also once again does his comic piano playing to good effect. Nothing more to add here except when watching the DVD, I highly recommend the Leonard Maltin commentary that accompanies this one as he provides great info throughout the picture including the missing opening sequence now considered lost. So, yeah, that's a high recommendation of A Night at the Opera.