(Mel Brooks, US 1976, 87 min., 35mm)
Mel Funn (Brooks), a washed-up Hollywood director, announces his plans to make a contemporary silent movie. With the help of collaborators Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise) and Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman), Mel sets out to recruit a top-notch cast (Burt Reynolds, Liza Minnelli, Paul Newman, Marcel Marceau and Anne Bancroft) in order to secure funding for his magnum opus. Mel Brooks gambled big — and won — with this boldly uncommercial attempt at recapturing the magic and hilarity of the pre-sound era. Brooks’s affectionate homage is not entirely silent, but the one spoken word of dialogue comes, ingeniously, from the least expected mouth. Though not the smash success of Blazing Saddles, this loving satire has, like Young Frankenstein, aged beautifully, and there’s a cadre of fans who argue it’s as good — if not better — than anything else Brooks directed during the 1970s.
Upcoming Events in this Series
Film Screenings | Matinee: Young Frankenstein (DCP)
100 Years of Mel Brooks Mel Brooks followed-up his anarchic Western parody Blazing Saddles with something even better: a spot-on spoof of the great Universal horror pictures of the 1930s.
Film Screenings | High Anxiety (35mm)
100 Years of Mel Brooks Comedic genius Brooks plays Dr. Thorndyke, the new administrator for the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous.
Film Screenings | Spaceballs (35mm)
100 Years of Mel Brooks One of Brooks’s most quotable films, this Star Wars send-up takes on the mega-franchise, American politics, and Hollywood itself.