Mel Brooks, Master of spoofs

mel brooks i think is the greatest actor/director/writer/producer there is. he has done many parodies such as robin hood men in tights, young frankenstein, dracula dead and loving it, high anxiety, to be or not to be, and the twelve chairs

"Tragedy is like when I cut my
finger. Comedy is when you walk
into an open sewer and die."
- Mel Brooks

Yeah, I'm definitely a big Mel Brooks fan, though his best films were absolutely done in the first part of his career. For my money, Young Frankenstein is his masterpiece, a really perfect movie. The Producers, Blazing Saddles, The Twelve Chairs and History of the World Part I comfortably fill the second tier for me, with Silent Movie and High Anxiety behind them. Every single thing he's done since has been less and less inspired. Spaceballs is decent, though doesn't approach the quality of the best of his early work. Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Dracula: Dead & Loving It are even less successful, though still watchable. Life Stinks is just plain a horrible flick, a giant, embarrassing misstep.



Don't know if he'll ever make a truly good movie again, but I got to see the Musical stage version of The Producers on Broadway with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and it was fall-down hysterical, even better than the original movie, and nearly rivaling Young Frankenstein as the best thing he's ever done.

Funny, funny man. A great talk show guest. His 2,000-year-old man bits with Carl Reiner are wonderful, and his pioneering work in television, writing on the Sid Caesar programs "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" plus creating "Get Smart" with Buck Henry, are rightfully legendary.


I have probably seen Young Frankenstein some two-hundred times since I was a kid, and I never, ever tire of it.

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His best movies were in this order, The Producers, Young Frakenstein, and Blazing Saddles, I loved all three of them so much. Though his other movies were funny too, those 3 were just great, funniest comedy there could be.Mel Brooks is indeed a genius.

yeah the producers was his best movie possibly the greatest comedy out there. but i have to disagree with what u said about life stinks basically u just thought it was bad because it was more of a drama than a comedy.

Ummm, well, no. Why don't you ask me for clarification before you assume? What about my varied taste in movies leads you to believe I only like comedies?!?!? Oh wait, you're new here, so you don't even know my taste in movies. Basically u feel u can make that kind of assumption anyway.

Geesh.

I don't dislike Life Stinks because it's not a spoof or as purely comedic as the rest of his filmography, I dislike it because it's poorly written, shoddily directed (looks like a cheap-o made-for-TV movie), is badly acted - by Mel in particular (and I adore Lesley Ann Warren, but even she was very subpar here), and just an overall waste of time and effort. The only sequence I have even a little bit of use for is the musical exchange between Mel and Ms. Warren, which while a nice interlude is completely incongruous with the rest of the wreck of a flick. It's simply a cruddy little movie, with a simplistic one-note message that would have been thin in a five-minute sketch, and is downright unbearable as a 90-minute feature.

But hey, knock yourself out.

This place is going to Hell.

Now, tell me, Idiot: where in his post did Holden even nearly say that? Oh, wait. He didn't.

Use a brain, or go away. Simple.

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History of the World is one of my guilty pleasures in life - not that great a movie, but man I love it. I've probably seen it 100 times in various states of sobriety. It's hard to beat the quotability.

"Ah but the servant waits while the master baits."
"Roman Red! A whole field of Wackus Weedus!" - the late, great Gregory Hines
"Yes no no no no no no yes no no no no no no yes no no yes no no no no no no no no no no YES!..."
"Jesus..." "Yes?" "What?" "What?" "Jesus..." "Yes?"

The best part is that I first saw it when I was, like, 8, so I was only finally getting ALL the jokes well into high school.

Part II was much better, tho.

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"Mmmm...sacrilicious..."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEL BROOKS

Mel turned eighty-two today. Only one thousand and eighteen to go before he's numerically the 2,000 year-old-man. I, for one, hope he makes it.

How did I not know that Mel and my beloved Gene shared a birthday month? How did I not know Mel's birthday is a day after my daughter's (and two days before my OTHER daughter's)?

Very cool, and yes, may he live to truly be 2,000! And Holden, although I long ago repped your first post in this thread, I wish I could rep it again. It expresses my own opinions PERFECTLY about Mel's movies.

Right down to having seen Young Frankenstein at least 200 times (the first time on opening day in the theater, of course -- I made my dad take me a few towns away to the one theater that was playing it ... my mom was working nights then).

It's as close to a perfect movie as I've probably ever seen.

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I'm also sure, by the way, that I'm misremembering whatever was probably bad about his short-lived series When Things Were Rotten. I can still hear the theme song, though: Once upon a time when things were rotten ... Not just queens but even kinds were rotten ...

Ahh, those were the days.... (But it probably stunk as a series and I'm sure I was just too biased and thrilled to have Mel on my TV regularly to know better.)

I have mixed feelings about Mel Brooks. When he’s good, he’s really good: The Producers, Young Frankenstein. But he’s released some stinkers, too: History of the World Part I, Space Balls, Life Stinks, Silent Movie. And he’s done some so-so films, including in my personal opinion Blazing Saddles.

But as for To Be or Not to Be, as I remember it was a virtually shot-for-shot repeat of the original To Be or Not to Be (1942), which had a much better—funnier—cast headed by Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, and Sig Ruman.

One area in which Brooks does excel, however, is his choice of a wife—Anne Bancroft!

The 1983 re-make of To Be or Not To Be is nowhere near the class of the original, naturally, though I think certainly watchable...especially providing you've never seen the Ernst Lubitsch wartime classic. BUT, the re-make was not directed by Mel Brooks. It did indeed star Mel and his lovely bride as well as a good supporting cast including Charles Durning (who was Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his work), Christopher Lloyd and José Ferrer, but it was directed by Alan Johnson. It was produced by Mel under his Brooksfilms banner, as was My Favorite Year, 84 Charing Cross Road, Cronenberg's The Fly and David Lynch's The Elephant Man, but Brooks did not helm the project.

Well, as Bogie said about Casablanca's waters, "I was misinformed."
I don't have any director's or movie-star's complete works committed to memory, so I usually look up such information. Saw To Be or Not to Be in a list of what I took to be films Brooks directed. My mistake. Thanks for the correction.

At least we agree that the original is the better of the two films, although I certainly wouldn't advocate destroying the remake. I had forgotten Charles Durning was in the remake. He was a very good actor; last time I saw a picture of him, he looked bad and really old, so I guess his movie career is pretty much over. From what I recall from the remake, they made the German spy a more comical character rather than pretty much playing it straight as in the original. But other than that, it seemed pretty much a copy, even used the same dialogue to a large extent.

Robinhood Men In Tights...IMO is the greatest "spoof" movie ever created, and is on my list of the top 10 greatest comedies of all time. I would say Mr. Brooks' closest 2nd would have to be Young Frankenstein...

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Guess what my favourite is?

:-)

He's pretty much my favorite comedic director, and is one of my favorite directors period. My personal favorite of his is Spaceballs, which I absolutely love and I think is hilarious. For my money I think his best film is Blazing Saddles, followed by The Producers and Young Frankenstein. I have yet to see all of his films (the only one I have left are Robin Hood: Men in Tights and I need to revisit a few of his movies) but overall I'd say that his worst film is either Life Stinks or Dracula: Dead and Loving It. I'm actually curious as to whether or not the remake of The Producers which was adapted from the stage play even approaches the greatness of the original film.

He is probably my favorite comedic director as well. Blazing Saddles is my personal favorite of his, and is probably the second best comedy of all-time IMO. I'm partial to Caddyshack, and that is my number one pick. Young Frankenstein, The Producers, and History of the World Part II are close behind.

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Mel Brookes is a fantastic director and his visonary take on things is possibley the best. I love most of his films but the best must be spaceballs as it is funny as hell.

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Gotta go with 'Young Frankenstein', Marty Feldman cracks me up in that film.

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Meh, I don't have very strong feelings one way or the other about the guy. All of his flicks that I've seen have their moments of inspired comedy, but I wouldn't call any of them classics. And while I don't dislike Brooks or anything, I don't think he's the "Master of Spoofs" he's apparently cracked up to be.

I've watched Young Frankenstein, Men in Tights, Spaceballs and History of the World Part 1 in their entirety. And I've caught most of The Producers and Blazing Saddles on cable over the years. I guess my favorite is History of the World, though Young Frankenstein still makes me laugh, too. But, yeah, nothing too spectacular.

He was pretty funny on that season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, though.