Friday, July 27, 2012

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Why it's here:
Truth be told, I am not a huge Marx Brothers fan, but felt they needed to be in the festival. This was supposed to be one of their best.

Specs:
About an hour and a half, black and white. Available on dvd

Our family's average rating (on a scale from 1-10):
7.0

More about the movie and our reaction to it:
Its been a while now since we watched this and I'm finding I'm fuzzy on the plot details. Hmmm... lets see... there is a basic backdrop of opera singers travelling on a boat and the brothers somehow or other being mixed up in matchmaking while trying to make some money...  The point is, I'm not sure the plot matters all that much to enjoying a Marx brothers' movie. The are simply funny - individually and collectively - regardless of what they're doing and why. Groucho with his one-liners may be the most famous, but we responded more to Harpo who is silent and a more physical comedian -- the one who uses his little horn to communicate. There's a brother for everyone's taste. Chico has a very funny bit playing piano that had us mesmerized too. One of the best parts of the movie was Groucho's banter with Chico about signing a contract.

The whole thing is light, fluffy, meaningless and pretty enjoyable. It did get off to a slow start and bog down a bit (for us) during the longer opera performances (we're pretty low-brow I guess), but overall well recommended.

Iconic shot:



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