Mel Brooks (Directed) Film By Film Thread

Sid did a lot of pantomime on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". He was well equipped to appear in a modern silent movie.

 

There are so many great gags in the movie, and another one is...

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This is Chaplin/Keaton worthy. And the extra punchline comes in the later scene when we see Carey still stuck in the back of Gould's jacket.

 

Looking the picture MikaelaArsenault posted, there Bernadette Peters bares a strong resemblance to Mabel Norman (a silent movie star) and maybe that's what they were looking for.

 

i haven't seen Silent Movie since it came out (Neptune Beach Theater, gone now) but I remember thinking it was pretty brilliant, esp remember the Burt Reynolds Scene (he was a big name ofcourse), im gonna try to track it down online to see how it holds up, killer cast

 

Silent Movie has a great visual style.

 

A few words about "Silent Movie" from Alan Spencer (who would later collaborate with Mel on "The Nutt House", which we'll touch on later).

Alan says Madeline Kahn passed on the Bernadette Peters role for "something bigger". Her imdb credits don't offer up a lot of suggestions. "Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood"? Really?

 

I wonder if it was 1975's At Long Last Love, starring Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepard? Two big names at the time.

 

I believe that was already completed and released before "Silent Movie" started shooting.

 

The beauty of the scene is that it so simple: Just two men and a coat...let the hilarity ensue! It reminds me of a scene from the movie A Shot In The Dark where Peter Sellers and Graham Stark are trying to synchronize their watches, and just when your think nothing else can go wrong, something else does...repeatedly.

 

A bit of inspiration, perhaps:

 

Wasn't she supposed to star in her own series?

 

"Supposed to" as in it never happened?

 

Next up:

"High Anxiety" (1977)

 

I tried finding a video, but couldn’t find one, so a picture had to do instead.

 

I didn't enjoy it much on the first viewing, mainly because I hadn't seen any Hitchcock movies. Once I saw some of them, I started to get many of the gags. To me that is the main weaknesses of High Anxiety.

 

Its hard to follow Producers, Blazing and Young. Still a very funny and entertaining movie, and one that I still stop at when surfing. Kind of like the Mel's version of "Day At The Races".

 

I'm strongly biased on this one. I LOVE "High Anxiety". I just watched it again yesterday and I still laugh at a number of jokes that I know are coming and that I know by heart. Mel's reaction to the hyperventilating woman in the airport ("No!") gets me every time. Nearly every thing that comes out of Ron Carey's mouth gets me. Nurse Diesel's black nurse's uniform gets me. The fruit cup denial gets me. Jack Riley doing Jack Benny ("Oh Dennis") even does me in. This movie is nessa!

 

Like RayS, I love this one. Harvey Korman and Cloris leachmen just destroy me. Howard Morris as well. the whole cast was great. Just simple scenes like the werewolf stuff are hilarious.

 

Harvey Korman pretending to be a werewolf is possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.

 

The rest of the writing team, apart from Mel, is surprisingly prominent in front of the camera in "High Anxiety". Rudy DeLuca plays "Braces" (clearly a takeoff on Richard Keil's "Jaws"), Ron Clark plays Zachary Cartwright, he of the pains in the neck and the werewolf nightmares, and Barry Levinson plays Dennis the bell hop.

 

the Dennis the Bellhop scene at the shower may be my favorite in this movie.

 

The werewolf scene

 

Nurse Diesel scenes

I love that the Institute has a "psychotic game room".