Explains how physical comedy is used in A Night At the Opera. Does a great job explaining the greatness of the Marx brothers

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

A Night at the Opera, directed by Sam Wood, is a comedy featuring the Marx brothers. Each of the three brothers has a distinctive characteristic which they are known for. Groucho plays Otis B. Driftwood who is a quick talking man who twists words around to trick other characters in the film. Chico plays Fiorelli a man with an Italian accent and is the least outspoken of the bunch. Harpo plays Tomasso, the silent brother who does a lot of slapstick comedy. There are many effective ways physical comedy is used in this film. Two examples are the scene where an overabundance of people gather in Driftwood's room for various reasons and when the head of police tries to catch Otis B. Driftwood after speaking at city hall under false pretenses.

The most comical scene utilizing physical comedy was when about twenty people crowd into a room that's the size of a small closet on a ship.

Marx Brothers, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing...

From left to right: Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Mosele...

Marx Brothers by Yousuf Karsh, 1948

Otis B. Driftwood brings a large trunk and inside the trunk are two stowaways. The two men in the trunk are Fiorelli and Tomasso. In this scene, there is a running gag in which Driftwood is ordering food and at the end of every order, Fiorelli, from through the door, orders two hard-boiled eggs. Then, after Driftwood tells the waiter, Tomasso honks his horn to order a hard-boiled egg also. After this gag, an array of people comes to the small room. Three waiters come into the room, two chambermaids, an engineer, a manicurist, an assistant to the engineer who was overweight, a woman looking for her Aunt, and finally, a girl to mop up the floor. All of these people squeezed in a room that was the smallest room on the ship. This scene shows a...