Category: Directed by Mel Brooks

History of the World: Part I (1981, Mel Brooks)

History of the World: Part I is funny about twenty percent of the time. The eighty percent of the time, it isn’t funny, it’s either because the jokes are too homophobic, sexist, racist, or punny. If you’re not laughing out loud, you’re ready to hiss.

Since twenty percent doesn’t quite qualify as a mishmash, it’s good the film’s a technical success. The matte paintings alone are an achievement, but Woody Omens’s Panavision cinematography is a delight. Writer, director, producer, and usually star Brooks does an okay job with the direction. Of course, if he doesn’t, he’s got Omens, editor John C. Howard, or composer John Morris to cover for him. But—at least as far as direction—Brooks is solid.

The film’s a pageant, starting in the Stone Age with a profoundly ahistorical 2001 sequence led by caveman Sid Caesar. Orson Welles narrates the whole movie, but never more than the caveman sequence. Welles’s outtakes are probably hilarious. Following that sequence, it’s off to the Ten Commandments and Brooks. It’s a short, funny scene, which Brooks brings back later. Despite Moses, the Last Supper, and the Spanish Inquisition, History’s pretty hands-off with religion, even though every time Brooks touches on it, the scene’s a winner.

Especially the Spanish Inquisition musical number.

But History spends the most time in Ancient Rome and the French Revolution—also note there’s no American history—which go on so long Brooks, the writer, needs rescuing. Literally.

In Ancient Rome, Brooks is a stand-up philosopher who gets a gig at Caesar’s Palace. The casino. Get it? He teams up with escaped slave Gregory Hines and vestal virgin Mary-Margaret Humes (who deserved an Oscar for pretending to lust after Brooks) for misadventures involving emperor Dom DeLuise and empress Madeline Kahn. Kahn’s mostly great. DeLuise is fine, but way too many of the jokes in his scene—it’s a billed cameo—are homophobic. Brooks, the writer, often runs out of ideas once he gets to a scene and tries to cover it with bad jokes and cleavage.

The Spanish Inquisition musical number comes between Rome and the French Revolution. It’s Brooks’s best writing in the film and, since it doesn’t have a chance to go stale, his best performance.

The French Revolution sequence involves Brooks playing both the King and the King’s pissboy, who holds the bucket for nobles to pee in. When the Revolution’s clearly on the horizon, noble Harvey Korman has Brooks, the pissboy, stand in for the King at the guillotine. Korman’s good—though Andréas Voutsinas’s much funnier as his sidekick—while Brooks is one-note. Pamela Stephenson plays a busty young woman who needs to curry the King’s favor (physically). When she discovers the pissboy isn’t going to force her, they have a few scant moments to become love interests before the Revolution—led by Cloris Leachman as Madame Defarge (which could’ve been the whole movie)—knocks down the door, leading to another chase sequence.

The finale’s contrived and hurried—despite a gigantic cast and elaborate production, Brooks entirely runs out of ideas before the ninety-minute mark. It only worsens in the epilogue, which promises Part II and completely deflates Part I.

The best performance is easily Hines, followed at a distance by Kahn, Voutsinas, and Korman. Both Stephenson and Humes are fine; they’ve just got terrible parts. Stephenson’s better, though. Despite the more objectified, exploitative part, she’s got some character, while Humes is just… madly in love with Brooks.

History’s got its moments, but nowhere near enough. Especially since the bad jokes are really bad. Again, thank goodness Brooks has his crew to make up the difference.

Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks)

Maybe the first two-thirds of Blazing Saddles are really funny, getting great performances out of lead Cleavon Little, his sidekick Gene Wilder and especially Harvey Korman’s villain. Wilder’s almost an add-on character; he’s around so Little, in addition to being funny and likable, doesn’t also have to be an accomplished gunslinger. It’s one of the most pragmatic elements of the screenplay, which has five credited contributors, and is otherwise all over the place.

Director Brooks splits Saddles out into sketches. Here’s a sketch with Little and underutilized proto-sidekick Charles McGregor, here’s a sketch with Slim Pickens and Korman, here’s a sketch with Brooks starring as the moron governor (Korman’s his suffering Judas attorney general), here’s one with Korman and Madeline Kahn, here’s one with Kahn and Little. The racist townsfolk–who get saddled, no pun intended, with black sheriff Little–have their own series of sketches. Brooks brings it all together somewhat well–the constant fade outs are more curtain lowering than transition–until the film hits the halfway point. Once Kahn and Little have their sketch, Saddles just starts racing to its conclusion.

And that conclusion is a madcap mess of Panavision and Technicolor. There’s no intelligence in the absurdity, except when Korman is around (Little is reduced to a bit player in his own movie for most of the conclusion). Korman gets Saddles’s best material, knows it and appreciates it. He delivers in every scene. Everyone else tries, but the material isn’t always there.

The script relies on caricatures–funny ones, sure, but still caricatures–instead of giving the actors anything to work with. Hence my describing it as a series of sketches. Burton Gilliam, for example, gets some solid material at the beginning, but then he just loiters around. McGregor follows a similar pattern–stronger material at the start, then he disappears only to return as a gear in the deus ex machina. One of the dei ex machina, the film’s got a couple, the second one pointless.

Brooks keeps it moving–Saddles runs under ninety minutes–but the last thirty or so are just spinning its wheels. Nice photography from Joseph F. Biroc and some rather funny songs for establishing montages (and Kahn’s number) help things along.

Saddles has all the pieces to be more than a madcap comedy, Brooks just doesn’t utilize them.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Mel Brooks; screenplay by Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor and Alan Uger, based on a story by Bergman; director of photography, Joseph F. Biroc; edited by Danford B. Greene and John C. Howard; music by John Morris; production designer, Peter Wooley; produced by Michael Hertzberg; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Cleavon Little (Bart), Gene Wilder (Jim), Harvey Korman (Hedley Lamarr), Madeline Kahn (Lili Von Shtupp), Slim Pickens (Taggart), Charles McGregor (Charlie), Burton Gilliam (Lyle), Alex Karras (Mongo), Mel Brooks (Governor William J. Lepetomane).

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Young Frankenstein (1974, Mel Brooks)

Young Frankenstein does not feel like a Mel Brooks film. It’s so startlingly well-directed, one could almost believe he didn’t direct it himself. Brooks, for the film, has this way of keeping the camera mostly stationary and letting his actors and the sets do all the work–one can’t forget Gerald Hirschfeld’s amazing cinematography either.

Brooks–and Wilder, who co-wrote and runs wild with the film in the lead–have a sizable accomplishment here.

Wilder’s performance–and Brooks puts him in these insanely tight close-ups with an unwavering shot–is unbelievably good. Probably his best performance. He does so well alone, but also so perfectly with everyone else (Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn). It’s almost unfortunate when Young Frankenstein has to get moving with its plot, because it means it’s going to end.

Kahn’s got some hilarious moments in an extrovert role, while Garr’s a lot quieter but just as good. Garr might give the best straight acting performance. Feldman’s got maybe the flashiest role; Brooks’s tight direction keeps him from taking over the film, making sure it’s him, Garr and Wilder.

As the Monster, Peter Boyle does a fine job. It’s an almost entirely physical performance, but his facial expressions–even exaggerated–are ideal. It’s impossible to think of anyone else in the role.

Same goes for Gene Hackman’s cameo. It’s incredibly small, but it’s one of Hackman’s most memorable performances.

Reiterating, the only thing wrong with Young Frankenstein is it eventually has to end.

3.5/4★★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Mel Brooks; screenplay by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, based on their story and a novel by Mary Shelley; director of photography, Gerald Hirschfeld; edited by John C. Howard; music by John Morris; production designer, Dale Hennesy; produced by Michael Gruskoff; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Gene Wilder (Dr. Frankenstein), Peter Boyle (The Monster), Marty Feldman (Igor), Cloris Leachman (Frau Blücher), Teri Garr (Inga), Madeline Kahn (Elizabeth), Gene Hackman (Blindman), Kenneth Mars (Inspector Kemp), Richard Haydn (Herr Falkstein), Liam Dunn (Mr. Hilltop) and Danny Goldman (Medical Student).

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Spaceballs (1987, Mel Brooks)

It’s kind of amazing how much of Spaceballs is actually funny–pretty much everything with Rick Moranis and Mel Brooks as the Spaceballs president–given how everything with Bill Pullman and Daphne Zuniga falls flat. It doesn’t even fall… it’s a zero degree plane. Some of it has to do with the writing of that portion–Brooks and his co-writers aren’t particularly interested in the good guys because they aren’t funny (the jokes are cheap and substandard and Brooks tries to give it a narrative–and romantic tension–instead of playing against narrative for laughs, like the Moranis parts). But it’s not all poor writing–Pullman’s terrible and Zuniga’s worse, giving one of the abysmal performances in a Hollywood studio film from the 1980s.

There aren’t any good performances on the good guy side–John Candy’s probably the best, if only by comparison (he’s not good by any means and his character is unfunny) and Joan Rivers’s vocal work as the robot is obnoxious. It doesn’t help it’s obvious the robot is frequently a dummy. Brooks as the Yoda stand-in isn’t funny and the only amusing parts of his sequence (besides the Wizard of Oz reference, which is good) is trying to place the actors playing the Dinks (the Jawas). The less said about Dick Van Patten, the better.

The bad guys are all great, from Brooks as the dumb president (though it’s hard not to think he’s doing a Harvey Korman impression), George Wyner and then there’s Moranis. Moranis does something real strange in the movie, especially given the Pullman, Zuniga and Candy sequences. He acts and he acts very well.

The rest–the jokes about marketing–is hit and miss, but the real problem is Brooks tries to tie a narrative to the movie instead of just playing for laughs. It makes Spaceballs rely on Pullman and Zuniga, so it really can’t do anything but fail.

And… I really do think George Lucas ripped off the good planet’s costume designs for Episode I.