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The Marx Brothers |
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Disclaimer |
Frank Bland's Why A Duck? |
Mikael Uhlin's Marxology
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The Marx Brothers |
|
Disclaimer |
Frank Bland's Why A Duck? |
Mikael Uhlin's Marxology
A Night At The Opera was originally promoted with a set of photos (for example 1, 2 and 3) with the Marx Brothers clowning with instruments. Picture 4 definitely links these photos with A Night At The Opera. Groucho has a trombone instead of his familiar guitar although it's Harpo who clowns with a trombone while sitting with the orchestra in the film (Thanks to Jeffrey Behr for bringing this up and to Meg Shean for finding photos).
The original shooting script to
this film was issued in paperback in 1972. It indicates that the
opening sequence was to have depicted the merry residents of Milan
singing a song (both Cosi-Cosa and the chorus of Pagliacci
have been suggested), with each singer passing the song along to
someone else who continues to sing it. The song eventually winds up
with the waiter in the restaurant, who apparently stopped singing just
before he approched Mrs. Claypool. The scene where Groucho pulls up at
the Opera House is badly cut because the picture and sound jump and are
out of sync. There is a terrible sound jump and the exterior shot of
the Opera House is only on screen for a split second. It may just have
been filler "atmosphere" shots of the opera house at night with people
arriving and taking their seats. Glenn Mitchell suggests the footage to
have been cut just before the initial release with even more footage
snipped from the 1949 reissue. Another theory is that all German and
Italian references were removed from the film during WWII and never
replaced. The trailer for the film features footage of Groucho, Harpo
and Chico walking away from the unconsious Lasparri and also footage of
the Marx Brothers and Allan Jones in the ticker tape parade. None of
these appears in the finished film.
In the complete cast list of the film in MGM: The
Golden Years, there are many characters who don't appear in
the
film, such as Count DiLuna and Ferrando.
In an email sent to me on 5 November 2001, Dale Blasingame points
out that these are actually from Verdi's Il Trovetore,
the opera around which the film is written.
"It is possible that these parts were to have been featured
and were simply edited for time or some other reason" Dale
writes.
Racz Tamas in Hungary has found two Hungarian movie posters that capture other lost scenes from A Night at the Opera.
The first one probably appeared early in the film as it shows Lasparri in clown costume alongside Harpo and Rosa. As can be seen in the present version of the film, Lasparri is appearing with Rosa in a performance of Pagliacci ("Clowns"). That story ends with the jealous Canio (alias Pagliaccio) killing his wife Nedda (alias Colombina) and the villager Silvio. In the play, there's also a fool named Tonio (alias Taddeo). To judge from this, the photo shows Lasparri as Canio/Pagliacci right after he has killed Nedda/Colombina (played by Rosa) and Silvio. To the right stands the horrified witness Tonio/Taddeo, played by Harpo.
The second one contains a still from the movie, which actually isn't in the movie, it is a photo of Harpo, Chico and Allan Jones sitting in front of a window looking in a room on the boat's deck, and in that room sits Maggie Dumont. There is a known alternative shot of this showing them from the room looking in, and Harpo makes a cockeyed grimace.
Another echo from Pagliacci in A Night at the Opera features Groucho singing a couple of lines of the song Vesti la giubba with his own lyrics: "Ridi Pagliacci ... I love you very muchee ... !".
The next step is of course to learn if an uncut version of A Night at the Opera still exists in Hungary, something Racz Tamas will try to find out.
In an email I received on 2 February 2002, Kay Lhota cites the 1972-book with the script of A Night at the Opera. According to the script, a fire breaks out while all of the crazy goings on at the theater goes on and the Marxes manage to keep the audience from panicking while Ricardo and Rosa hold the audience with their beautiful voices. The last scene of the film (presumably shot close to the Russian Aviators speech scene) was to be the Mayor congratulating the heroes who saved the theater audience.
