A Night at the Opera

A Night at the Opera
Directed by	Sam Wood
Written by	James Kevin McGuiness, George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind
Brothers	Groucho, Chico, Harpo
Produced by	Irving Thalberg
Distributed by	MGM
Year released	1935
Runtime	96 min.
IMDb page

A Night at the Opera is the sixth movie released by the Marx Bros. It was their first without Zeppo.

Cast

Character	Actor
Otis B. Driftwood	Groucho
Fiorello	Chico
Tomasso	Harpo
Mrs. Teasdale	Margaret Dumont
Rosa Castaldi	Kitty Carlisle
Ricardo Baroni	Allan Jones
Rodolfo Lassparri	Walter King
Herman Gottlieb	Siegfried Rumann

In popular culture

Template:In popular cultureTemplate:Refimprove Stateroom scene

• The Belgian singer Jacques Brel was inspired by the famous stateroom gag in the film when he wrote his song "Le Gaz" (1967) which depicts several men all crowding together in one room to meet a courtesan "for the gas."
• The 1st season, 23rd episode of The Bob Newhart Show titled "Bum Voyage" features an homage to the stateroom scene where Bob and a dozen cast members are crammed into Bob and Emily's stateroom with Howard Borden announcing that "The first one that makes a Marx Brothers joke gets it!"
• Cyndi Lauper featured a similar overcrowded stateroom gag in her music video for the song "Girls Just Want To Have Fun".
• Sting also recreated the overcrowded stateroom gag in his music video for the 1991 song "All This Time".
• The Warner Bros. animated show Animaniacs also paid homage to the stateroom gag in the short "Hercule Yakko".
• Though not one room, Mr. Mom also paid an homage to the stateroom gag in its finale.
• In the Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a scene almost identical to the stateroom scene occurs in the Martins' closet.
• An 8th season episode of Seinfeld titled "The Pothole" features a homage to the stateroom scene in which the four main characters all cram into a small janitor's closet that Elaine is using to get Chinese food delivered; they all end up spilling out after Kramer spills ammonia.
• Mystery writer Jeffrey Cohen paid tribute to the stateroom scene in his novel A Night at the Operation (2009). The book's title also parodies the name of the movie.

Sanity clause

• The British punk band The Damned used Chico's quote ("There ain't no sanity clause") as a title for a 1980 single.
• Detective Comics #826 pays homage to the film. In it the Joker captures Tim Drake, the third Robin, and takes him on a mad spree in a car, running over anyone they encounter over the Christmas season. When the Joker plans to kill a street Santa Claus, Robin distracts him by saying "You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Claus." The Joker laughs and the two get in an argument over which Marx Brothers film the gag is from, with Robin claiming it is from The Big Store. The Joker is distracted long enough for Robin to punch him out and escape. The Joker himself uses the line in The Killing Joke.

General

• At the reading the book Harvey Beaks "The Finger" meets the Harvey.
• The British rock group Queen paid homage to this film by naming one of their most famous albums after it.
• The film's script is credited as the basis for the 1992 film Brain Donors, produced by David Zucker and Jerry Zucker of Airplane! and The Naked Gun fame.
• At the end of the 1990 film The Freshman, Rodolfo Lassparri is the alias used on Matthew Broderick's passport.
• The German power metal band Blind Guardian paid homage to this film by naming one of their albums after it.