Review of Blazing Saddles Blu-ray
Mel
Brooks scored his first commercial hit with this raucous Western spoof
starring the late Cleavon Little as the newly hired (and conspicuously
black) sheriff of Rock Ridge. Sheriff Bart teams up with deputy Jim
(Gene Wilder) to foil the railroad-building scheme of the nefarious
Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman). The simple plot is just an excuse for a
steady stream of gags, many of them unabashedly tasteless, that Brooks
and his wacky cast pull off with side-splitting success. The humor is
so juvenile and crude that you just have to surrender to it; highlights
abound, from the lunkheaded Alex Karras as the ox-riding Mongo to
Madeline Kahn's uproarious send-up of Marlene Dietrich as saloon
songstress Lili Von Shtupp. Adding to the comedic excess is the
infamous campfire scene involving a bunch of hungry cowboys, heaping
servings of baked beans and, well, you get the idea.
--Jeff Shannon
Review of Spaceballs Blu-ray
Mel
Brooks's 1987 parody of the Star Wars trilogy is a jumble of jokes
rather than a comic feature, and, predictably, some of those jokes work
better than others. The cast, including Brooks in two roles, more or
less mimics the principal characters from George Lucas's famous story
line, and the director certainly gets a boost from new allies (
SCTV
graduates Rick Moranis and John Candy) as well as old ones (Dick Van
Patten, Dom DeLuise). Watch this and wait for the sporadic
inspiration--but don't be surprised if you find yourself yearning for
those years when Brooks was a more complete filmmaker (
Young Frankenstein).
--Tom Keogh
Review of Young Frankenstein Blu-ray
If you were to argue that Mel Brooks's
Young Frankenstein
ranks among the top-ten funniest movies of all time, nobody could
reasonably dispute the claim. Spoofing classic horror in the way that
Brooks's previous film
Blazing Saddles sent up classic
Westerns, the movie is both a loving tribute and a raucous, irreverent
parody of Universal's classic horror films
Frankenstein (1931) and
Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Filming in glorious black and white, Brooks re-created the
Frankenstein laboratory using the same equipment from the original
Frankenstein
(courtesy of designer Kenneth Strickfaden), and this loving attention
to physical and stylistic detail creates a solid foundation for nonstop
comedy. The story, of course, involves Frederick Frankenstein (Gene
Wilder) and his effort to resume experiments in re-animation pioneered
by his late father. (He's got some help, since dad left behind a book
titled
How I Did It.) Assisting him is the hapless hunchback
Igor (Marty Feldman) and the buxom but none-too-bright maiden Inga (Teri
Garr), and when Frankenstein succeeds in creating his monster (Peter
Boyle), the stage is set for an outrageous revision of the Frankenstein
legend. With comedy highlights too numerous to mention, Brooks guides
his brilliant cast (also including Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn,
Kenneth Mars, and Gene Hackman in a classic cameo role) through scene
after scene of inspired hilarity. Indeed,
Young Frankenstein is
a charmed film, nothing less than a comedy classic, representing the
finest work from everyone involved. Not one joke has lost its payoff,
and none of the countless gags have lost their zany appeal. From a
career that includes some of the best comedies ever made, this is the
film for which Mel Brooks will be most fondly remembered. Befitting a
classic, the Special Edition DVD includes audio commentary by Mel
Brooks, a "making of" documentary, interviews with the cast, hilarious
bloopers and outtakes, and the original theatrical trailers. No video
library should be without a copy of
Young Frankenstein. And just remember--that's
Fronkensteen.
--Jeff Shannon
Review of High Anxiety Blu-ray
An
affectionate homage more than a spoof of Alfred Hitchcock thrillers,
Mel Brooks's hilarious movie is one of the funniest modern comedies
around. Brooks plays a psychiatrist with a severe fear of heights who
moves to the Bay Area to take over a psychiatric hospital after its
former head mysteriously disappears. He must contend with the resident
psychiatrist (Harvey Korman) and the twisted resident nurse (Cloris
Leachman) as they plot against him, eventually framing him for murder.
While on the run, Brooks teams up with the alluring daughter (Madeline
Kahn) of the missing doctor to solve the mystery and confront his own
fears. Containing some classic sequences and cowritten by Barry Levinson
(
Rain Man,
Wag the Dog), who appears briefly as a too-touchy bellhop in a
Psycho-shower-scene takeoff,
High Anxiety is a thoroughly enjoyable romp from one of the masters of comedy today.
--Robert Lane
Review of History Of The World Part 1 Blu-ray
Mel
Brooks's 1981, three-part comedy--set in the Stone Age, the Roman
Empire, and the French Revolution--is pure guilty pleasure. Narrated by
Orson Welles and featuring a lot of famous faces in guest appearances
(beyond the official cast), the film opens well with Sid Caesar playing a
caveman, then moves along to the unlikely but somehow hilarious
juxtaposition of Caesar's soldiers (the other Caesar, not Sid) with pot
humor, and ends on a dumb-funny note in the French bloodbath. This is a
take-it-or-leave-it movie, and it works best if you're in a
take-it-or-leave-it mood.
--Tom Keogh
Review of Robin Hood Men In Tights Blu-rayIt's not
Blazing Saddles,
but there are some chuckles to be found in Mel Brooks's 1993 spoof of
the Robin Hood legend. Cary Elwes is Robin (with a lighthearted jab at
Kevin Costner's bad English accent in
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves),
while Richard Lewis plays an angst-ridden King John, and Roger Rees a
snotty Sheriff of Nottingham. Comic David Chappelle has some good
moments as the only black member of Robins's noble thieves, and Brooks
does his own spin on Friar Tuck: Rabbi Tuchman. The song-and-dance
sequences featuring a chorus line of the Merry Men ("We're men / men in
tights") is vintage Brooks, but otherwise the film can't get any
traction.
--Tom Keogh
Review of Silent Movie Blu-rayOne
of Mel Brooks's weaker vehicles, this 1976 feature finds a movie
producer (Brooks) deciding that the public is ready for the silent film
form again. Reasonably ambitious and promising, the film ultimately
doesn't do for silent cinema what Brooks did for atmospheric horror (by
reviving it while parodying it) in
Young Frankenstein. Lots of famous faces pass through
Silent Movie,
to varying effect. Perhaps the best joke in the movie is the one
performer who actually has a line of dialogue: mime Marcel Marceau.
--Tom Keogh
Review of To Be Or Not To Be Blu-rayNo filmmaker seems to take such glee at poking fun of the Nazis as Mel Brooks. In
To Be or Not to Be,
a remake of a 1942 Jack Benny comedy, Brooks and an all-star ensemble
cast have a splendid time working as a makeshift Polish underground in
World War II, using as their cover their theatrical company. Brooks
stars as Frederick Bronski, a legend-in-his-own-mind leading man, and
Anne Bancroft, Brooks' real-life wife, is his glamorous--and
amorous--spouse. It's a joy to see the two spar, snuggle, and softshoe
together. Bancroft, in her early '50s, is so gorgeous and seductive it's
perfectly believable that she's beguiling to men of all ages--from a
hunky young flier played by Tim Matheson to a wizened Nazi collaborator
played by Mel Ferrer. As one would expect in a Brooks film, there's
lots of silliness, but the script is leavened with real drama and
fleshed out by a superb cast, including Charles Durning as a
semi-clueless Nazi official. There are witty blink-and-you'll-miss-them
moments, too; early in the film, Bronski is barking orders to his
theater staff, including one crew member who's named Sondheim,
apparently solely so that later Bronski can bark, "Sondheim, send in
the clowns!" Also not to miss is the production number "Naughty Nazis,"
in which Bronski, as a misunderstood Hitler, sings, "All I vant is
peace... a little piece of Poland, a little piece of France...." No
wonder he's "world famous in Poland"! Extras include a
behind-the-scenes making-of featurette, and interviews with Brooks,
Durning, and the lovely Bancroft, all the more bittersweet viewed after
her 2005 death.
--A.T. Hurley
Review of Twelve Chairs Blu-ray
Mel
Brooks's 1970 comedy (his second work as a film director) is based on
an old Russian folktale, and was first filmed in Yugoslavia in 1927. The
story concerns an old woman who reveals on her deathbed that she has
hidden jewels inside one of 12 chairs that were formerly in her home but
are now scattered. Ron Moody plays the poor Russian nobleman seeking
them, and Dom DeLuise is his rival. After Brooks's wild and even
controversial first film, The Producers, The Twelve Chairs seems
relatively tame; but it is still a funny and slightly exotic work owing
to its director's longtime interest in classic cinema.
--Tom Keogh
