A Night at the Opera (1935) on Netflix

Passed19351h 36mComedy Music Musical

Otis B. Driftwood introduces Mrs. Claypool to opera impresario Herman Gottlieb in Milan. Chorus singer Riccardo Baroni loves soprano Rosa Castaldi, whom tenor Rodolfo Lassparri also pursues.

Netflix3.9/5
IMDb7.8/1036,801 votes
Rotten Tomatoes97%

Trailer

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Plot summary

Mrs. Claypool, a wealthy Milan widow, has taken on Otis B. Driftwood as her business manager, and he helps himself to her money while presenting her to Herman Gottlieb, who runs the New York Opera Company. Gottlieb wants the famed tenor Rodolfo Lassparri for his stage, and Mrs. Claypool agrees to put up the money. Backstage, Lassparri mistreats his dresser Tomasso and courts Rosa Castaldi, a chorus soprano who loves Riccardo Baroni, a chorister waiting for his chance. Riccardo's friend Fiorello appoints himself his manager. Driftwood, hunting for Lassparri to sign him first, instead puts his name to a contract for Riccardo without realizing it. The company sails for New York with Rosa aboard, and Riccardo, Fiorello and Tomasso hide themselves among Driftwood's luggage.

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Night at the Opera (1935)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

The famous stateroom scene was nearly cut because it got no laughs; one evening the Marx Brothers threw away the script and ad-libbed the whole scene, turning a weak routine into one of their all-time classics.
According to Oscar Levant, the first two previews of the finished film in Long Beach were a "disaster" with "hardly a laugh". Thalberg and George S. Kaufman spent days in the editing room, roughly nine minutes were cut, and the result was a hit.
MGM re-edited the film in 1938 after the Italian government complained it "made fun of Italian people". The edits were made to MGM's master negative, and no prints of the original uncut version are known to survive.
A planned opening in which each Marx Brother took turns roaring instead of MGM's mascot Leo the Lion, with Harpo honking his horn, was scrapped by studio head Louis B. Mayer, who felt the parody would cheapen the respected trademark. It turned up years later in a re-release trailer.
In the aviator-impersonation scene, Driftwood's apparent gibberish is actually English. It was recorded normally, then reversed and dubbed over the scene in post-production, so playing it backwards reveals lines such as "This man is accusing you of being impostors".
The British rock group Queen named their 1975 studio album A Night at the Opera after the film, and their follow-up album, A Day at the Races, was also named after a Marx Brothers film.
The Belgian singer Jacques Brel was inspired by the film's overcrowded stateroom gag when he wrote his song "Le Gaz", on Jacques Brel 67, which depicts several men all crowding together in one room to meet a courtesan "for the gas".