The Mel Brooks Collection
(Fox Region 1 NTSC DVD)
review by Big McLargehuge

There's an inverse ratio of quality within Mel Brooks' cinematic canon, that is, the closer you get to today, the less funny his films are. This collection of eight films contains a pretty good sampling of Brooks' resume. From his earlier film The 12 Chairs, a moderately funny slapstick treasure hunt in post Czarist Russia to Robin Hood Men in Tights, a film so spectacularly unfunny that it makes you long for the subtle unhurried humor of the last two Three Stooges two-reelers starring "Curly" Joe Besser.

Within this collection we are treated to two pieces of absolute classic comedy gold, Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. Notably lacking from this set is The Producers, which is far too busy being pimped out on Broadway, and in a horrifically unfunny remake.

The Producers is still the single funniest film I have ever seen and even though I've watched it some thirty times it never fails to elicit peals of laughter. There is a reason that the Producers, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles are so funny.

Mel didn't write them alone. Gene Wilder scripted some of The Producers and Young Frankenstein with Mel Brooks and cowrote Blazing Saddles with Richard Pryor.

If you watch Young Frankenstein, for example, you can spot the Gene Wilder contributions with relative ease because they are not the "Take my wife please" sort of humor that Mel Brooks was comfortable with. Gene Wilder understood how funny situational humor was, that it took time to develop, and occasionally folded back on itself in fits of self-reference, making the audience think as well as laugh.

While Mel Brooks worked in live TV, specifically The Sid Caesar Show, where skits were kept to about five minutes, relied on fast moving one-liners and broad slapstick to tickle the funny bone.

The balance between these two comedy styles is well realized in The Producers and Young Frankenstein. By the time He, Wilder, and Pryor were into the script for Blazing Saddles the addition of social commentary into the comedic mix was a welcome addition.

The problem with Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein is that it established Brooks as a maker of parodies, and while parodies can be, and often are, very funny, the well of material from which to draw, if not timely, relegates the comedy to a very short lifespan.

Brooks stepped out of this mode a couple of times in his career following Blazing Saddles with Silent Movie, To Be or Not to Be, History of the World Part 1, and Life Stinks (not appearing in this set), and while the former was a gimmick movie that attempted to pay homage to the great physical comedians of the golden age, the later was more of a screwball comedy.

To Be or not to Be is a remake of a much funnier film from the 1940's, while History of the World Part 1 meanders aimlessly through skit comedy set pieces and goofy musical numbers that never really congeal into a coherent film.

The problem with Silent Movie is that the one joke that defines the film, having Buster Keaton utter the only line in the film, is completely lost on anyone under, say, 40. The remaining 89 minutes of the film is one long agonizing chase and smashfest tests the tolerance for stupidity limits of even the most ardent fan of the genre.

The films following Blazing Saddles at least showcase Brooks' attempt to find his comedy muse, and when the market didn't pay out for it, he fell back into trying to duplicate his previous successes. High Anxiety spoofs Alfred Hitchcock's work, and has some funny moments, but Hitchcock's work always contained an undercurrent of gallows humor, if not outright parody, and his presence on TV as himself, weekly and later nightly in UHF reruns, weakened Brooks' humor. It was already okay to laugh at Hitchcock so the elements that made his earlier work so funny, the play romanticizing Hitler, the black sheriff in a racist western town, the reluctant grandson of a mad scientist, and instead we get sketchy jibes at famous movie scenes.

His parodies didn't get better. Spaceballs (not appearing in this set), Robin Hood Men in Tights, and Dracula Dead and Loving It (not appearing in this set) are just awful and unfunny gag movies.

And the next person who tells me that Spaceballs is a masterpiece gets kicked in the Schwartz.

This set contains the following films (followed by my skull grade) –

Young Frankenstein - 5 skulls
Blazing Saddles 4 skulls
The 12 Chairs 3 skulls
To be or not to Be - 3 skulls
History of the World Part 1 - 2.5 skulls
High Anxiety - 2 skulls
Silent Movie - 2 Skulls (2.5 if you know who Buster Keaton was)
Robin Hood Men in Tights - Total Shit

All of them are offered in widescreen, with Blazing Saddles offering both TV format and Widescreen as options. All have varying extras (from previous releases) including interviews with Mel Brooks, directors commentary tracks, production notes, and trailers.

The TV Aspect side of the Blazing Saddles disk in my set was scratched beyond playability.

$70 is a lot of money to spend on two comedy classics and six time wasters with occasional laughs.