A Night at the Opera was the first Marx Brothers film without Zeppo. Feeling his talent was being wasted playing the bland straight man in their first five movies, he left the group shortly after the debacle of Duck Soup (1933). When Groucho, Harpo and Chico first met with Irving Thalberg to discuss working at MGM, the producer asked if three brothers would cost less than four. "Don't be silly," Groucho shot back. "Without Zeppo we're worth twice as much."

Zeppo went on to become a very successful agent. As his brothers' representative, he negotiated the deal to buy the rights to the Broadway hit Room Service, which the Marxes made into a picture in 1938. His second wife, Barbara, from whom he was divorced in 1972, later married Frank Sinatra. Something of a mechanical wiz, he patented in 1969 a wristwatch for cardiac patients, from which an alarm would sound if the wearer went into cardiac arrest. His company, Marman Products, produced clamping devices that were used in the first atomic bomb raids over Japan in 1945.

The perennial Marx Brothers leading lady - and the object of Groucho's flirtations and insults - Margaret Dumont was very much like the character she played in A Night at the Opera, Mrs. Claypool, and in seven other Marx films. Morrie Ryskind, co-author of three Marx movies, including this one, said she was a society widow in need of a job, so she went on the stage. Although she had great success in Marx Brothers' shows and, later, movies, she claimed never to quite get what was going on. Groucho once said she was "always the stuffy, dignified matron. She took everything seriously. She would say to me: 'Julie [his real name], why are they laughing?'" Dumont was born in Atlanta in 1889 and brought up in the home of her godfather, Joel Chandler Harris, creator of the Uncle Remus stories. Early in life, she trained for the opera. She died in 1965.

Director Sam Wood temporarily replaced the ill Victor Fleming (himself a replacement for George Cukor) during the making of Gone with the Wind (1939).

Allan Jones was Jeanette MacDonald's first choice to be her co-star in Naughty Marietta (1935), but because he was tied up with this picture, she made the movie with Nelson Eddy, the first of their eight movies together. Jones is the father of the singer Jack Jones, popular in the 1960s.

Kitty Carlisle married Moss Hart, frequent collaborator of George S. Kaufman, who co-wrote this script. Although an accomplished singer, she is best known as a panelist on a number of TV game shows of the 1950s and 60s, including To Tell the Truth and I've Got a Secret. She made only four movies after A Night at the Opera; the most recent is Six Degrees of Separation (1993).

FUN QUOTES FROM A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Driftwood (Groucho): I saw Mrs. Claypool first. Of course, her mother really saw her first but there's no point in bringing the Civil War into this.

Driftwood: You're willing to pay him a thousand dollars a night just for singing? Why, you can get a phonograph record of Minnie the Moocher for 75 cents. And for a buck and a quarter, you can get Minnie.

Driftwood: Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parlor.

Mrs. Claypool: I've been sitting right here since 7:00.
Driftwood: Yes, with your back to me. When I invite a woman to dinner I expect her to look at my face. That's the price she has to pay.

Driftwood: That woman? Do you know why I sat with her? Because she reminded me of you.
Mrs. Claypool: Really.
Driftwood: Of course. That's why I'm sitting here with you. Because you remind me of you. Your eyes, your throat, your lips. Everything about you reminds me of you...except you. How do you account for that? If she figures that one out she's good.

Driftwood: It's all right, tha-that's in every contract. Tha-that's what they call a sanity clause.
Fiorello (Chico): Ha ha ha ha ha ha ... you can't fool me. There ain't no sanity clause.

Otis B. Driftwood: That can't be my shirt, my shirt doesn't snore.
Fiorello: Shh! Don't wake him up. He's got insomnia, he's trying to sleep it off.

Otis B. Driftwood: You didn't happen to see my suit in there, did you?
Fiorello: Yeah, it was taking up too much room, so we sold it.
Otis B. Driftwood: Did you get anything for it?
Fiorello: Uh... dollar forty.
Otis B. Driftwood: That's my suit all right.

Lassparri: Never in my life have I received such treatment. They threw an apple at me.
Otis B. Driftwood: Well, watermelons are out of season.

Otis B. Driftwood: Have you got any milk-fed chickens?
Waiter: Yes, sir.
Otis B. Driftwood: Well, squeeze the milk out of one and bring me a glass.

Henderson: You live here all alone?
Otis B. Driftwood: Yes. Just me and my memories. I'm practically a hermit.
Henderson: Oh. A hermit. I notice the table's set for four.
Otis B. Driftwood: That's nothing - my alarm clock is set for eight. That doesn't prove a thing.

Henderson: Am I crazy or are there only two beds in here?
Otis B. Driftwood: Now which question do you want me to answer first Henderson?

Compiled by Rob Nixon