with and they wield it with maniacal delight." "The comedy material is always good and sometimes brilliant", reported Variety. "This should be a laugh fest with all types of audiences", wrote Film Daily. "This is a good Marx Brothers film, good as any they have done", wrote John Mosher in The New Yorker. "It may not be new or surprising, but it's quick and funny." The film holds a 97% "fresh" score at Rotten Tomatoes based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Watermelons may go out of season, but in A Night at the Opera, the Marx Brothers' daffy laughs are never anything less than uproariously fresh." Ken Hanke calls it "hysterical, but not up to the boys' Paramount films." Mark Bourne concurs: "[The Marx Brothers] still let the air out of stuffed shirts and barbecue a few sacred cows, but something got lost in all that MGMness when the screen's ultimate anti-authoritarian team starting working the Andy Hardy side of the street." Roger Ebert admitted that, while A Night at the Opera "contains some of their best work", he "fast-forward[ed] over the sappy interludes involving Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones." Danel Griffin says: "A Night at the Opera is funny, but this is NOT the Marx Brothers, and their earlier style is so sorely missed that the film falls flat. The main problem with A Night at the Opera is the obvious lack of the Marx Brothers' trademark anarchy. What distinguished them in their Paramount films from all other comedians was their thumb-biting indictment of society. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: 1998: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies – Nominated 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs – #12 2005: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes: Otis B. Driftwood: "It's alright, that's in every contract. That's what they call a sanity clause." Fiorello: "You can't fool me! There ain't no Sanity Claus." – Nominated 2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated 2007: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #85 In popular culture Stateroom scene The Belgian singer Jacques Brel was inspired by the famous stateroom gag in the film when he wrote his song "Le Gaz" (1967) which depicts several men all crowding together in one room to meet a courtesan "for the gas." The 1st season, 23rd episode of The Bob Newhart Show