The three stowaways have to hide out in the room while a parade of people walk in, asking to either use the cabin, or to perform their regular duties. This is just a set-up for the famous "Stateroom Scene", in which a total of 15 people crowd into Driftwood's tiny cabin. This continues until Fiorello and Tomasso each have ordered about a dozen hard-boiled eggs and Driftwood has ordered about everything else – including coffee to sober up some stewed prunes. The film ends with Driftwood and Fiorello negotiating another contract, as Rosa and Ricardo sing an encore.įiorello: (inside room): And two hard-boiled eggs.ĭriftwood: Make that three hard boiled eggs. Claypool and the audience clearly prefer Ricardo over Lassparri, and the latter is booed and hit with an apple after he is untied and attempts to return to the stage.
The boys decide to seek revenge by sabotaging the opening night performance of Il trovatore with various antics, climaxing with the abduction of Lassparri, which forces Gottlieb to substitute Ricardo and Rosa in his place. Lassparri appears and after a physical altercation with Ricardo, both Rosa and Driftwood are fired from the opera company by Gottlieb. Meanwhile, Ricardo is reunited with Rosa after climbing in the window of her hotel room. During a hero's welcome in New York, the stowaways are exposed as frauds and they flee, hiding out in Driftwood's hotel room while pursued by police sergeant Henderson. They escape with help from Driftwood and are able to sneak into the country by assuming the identities of three famous bearded aviators, who are traveling aboard the ship. Later, Lassparri spots the three stowaways among the Italian immigrants on the ship, and they are caught and thrown into the brig. Fiorello refuses to go until they've eaten, and eventually Driftwood's very small stateroom is crowded with an assortment of people. After being discovered, Driftwood attempts to get the three of them to leave, as he is expecting a rendezvous with Mrs. After bidding farewell to Rosa at the pier, Ricardo, Fiorello, and Tomasso stow away inside Driftwood's steamer trunk. Claypool, Rosa, Lassparri and Gottlieb all set sail from Italy to New York aboard an ocean liner. Driftwood, who believes Fiorello is referring to Lassparri (who is laying unconscious at their feet), unwittingly signs Ricardo to a contract. Fiorello appears and introduces himself to Driftwood as the manager of the "greatest tenor in the world". Driftwood arrives backstage and finds Lassparri attacking Tomasso, his dresser Tomasso knocks Lassparri unconscious by hitting him over the head with a mallet. Ricardo is in love with the soprano, Rosa Castaldi, who is also being courted by Lassparri.
Claypool to invest $200,000 in the opera company, allowing Gottlieb to engage Rodolfo Lassparri, the "greatest tenor since Caruso".īackstage at the opera house, chorister Ricardo Baroni hires his best friend Fiorello to be his manager. Claypool and soon introduces her to Herman Gottlieb director of the New York Opera Company, also dining at the restaurant. After she discovers him dining with another woman and seated directly behind her, Driftwood joins Mrs. Claypool, a wealthy widow, has apparently been stood-up for dinner by Otis B. 100 Movies, at number 85 and previously in AFI's 100 Years.100 Laughs 2000 showing, at number 12.Īt a restaurant in Milan, Italy, Mrs.
It is also included in the 2007 update of AFI's 100 Years. One of MGM's biggest hits at the 1935 box office, A Night at the Opera was selected in 1993 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind from a story by James Kevin McGuinness, with additional uncredited dialogue by Al Boasberg. It was the first of five films the Marx Brothers made under contract for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after their departure from Paramount Pictures, and the first after Zeppo left the act. A Night at the Opera is a 1935 American comedy film starring the Marx Brothers, and featuring Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont, Sig Ruman, and Walter Woolf King.