Cinema: The New Pictures: Nov. 18, 1935

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As Otis B. Driftwood, social manager of Mrs. Claypool, he has advised his client to further her social aspirations by sponsoring an opera company. Mrs. Claypool gives $200,000 to the director of the company (Siegfried Rumann), who signs up famed Lassparri and his sweetheart, Rosa (Kitty Carlisle). Meanwhile, by mistake, Groucho has signed an unknown tenor, Ricardo Baroni (Allan Jones), who also loves Rosa. Ricardo, his friend Chico, and Harpo, discharged valet of Lassparri, stow away in Groucho's trunk when the opera company sets out for New York from Milan. What follows in the course of one of the most complicated feature comedies ever photographed concerns the efforts of Groucho and associates to get Ricardo a job in the opera company and further his amour with Rosa. To U. S. audiences which once split their sides at the Marxes, but now find them dullish, it will be good news that the brothers have some new routines. 1) Shipboard routine: Hysteria is built up by putting four people and a trunk in a cabin intended for one person .and suitcase, then bringing in stewards, manicurists, telephone repairmen, et al. 2) Landing routine: The stowaways, minus passports, cut the beards from three sleeping notables, glue them on, enjoy a public welcome until voiceless Harpo, called on for a speech, stalls by drinking water from the speakers' table, washes off his beard. 3) Opera routine: At the premiere of the opera company a full symphony orchestra attempts to render Il Trovatore while the brothers run mad, trying to break up the performance so as to get the lead for Ricardo, climbing in the flies of the opera house and swinging from rope to rope so that wild pieces of scenery appear behind the singers. As a climax Groucho substitutes plebeian music on the racks, causing the orchestra at a turn of the score-page to swing from Trovatore into Take Me Out to the Ball Game while Groucho enters down the aisle, selling popcorn and peanuts.

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