TOD:
I have seen all of the movies Mel Brooks has made. All of his movies since (and including) SPACEBALLS have been pretty mediocre/bad. He started to wane around HISTORY OF THE WORLD, which is more miss than hit.
Early Brooks is quite good. THE TWELVE CHAIRS is an underrated comedy, though not an original story by Brooks, but better than latter Brooks, and it has a great cast including Langella and Moody. THE CRITIC, which was a theatrical animated short, was very funny and more than likely improvised. THE 2,000 YEAR-OLD MAN, also a theatrical animated short, was really the old Reiner-Brooks bit, but was funny.
THE PRODUCERS (1968) really is the sine qua non of Brooks. While I like most of BLAZING SADDLES, it's very much a live action cartoon and would have been a different film had co-writer Richard Pryor actually starred in it.
Although YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN was directed by Brooks and has many Brooksian elements in it, I generally give the major credit to Gene Wilder who had the original story and treatment. So, the success of this film is, I think, mainly due to Wilder as the "theme" is consistent throughout the picture.
I like HISTORY OF THE WORLD, Pt. I even though I "know better". Since it debuted on home media it's a lot easier to fast forward through the "eh" parts.
I consider SILENT MOVIE and his version of TO BE OR NOT TO BE (which cannot carry the water of the Jack Benny version by Lubitsch) to be like vanity pieces when he considered himself more of a producer, particularly with the success of Brooksfilms' production of THE ELEPHANT MAN.
I like HIGH ANXIETY even though, it too, is uneven. Had someone like Wilder been a collaborator there may have been more consistent homage to Hitchcock. At least it had Barry Levenson to keep Brooks from totally derailing.
With SPACEBALLS, I have a love/hate toward this movie. It's okay, but the timing of this movie was way after the initial Star Wars hoopla, and it really goes for the juvenile jugular. The movie is also another example of John Candy, who was a very funny TV talent, in a movie that shows that no one knew what to do with him.
Everything else is just (to borrow a term used in both YF and HA) "kaka". The DRACULA parody was dreadful. The film of the musical of The Producers was nothing compared to the teaming of Mostel and Wilder. I've always liked Nathan Lane, but Matthew Broderick is not my cup of tea. I saw him in person in NY and it did nothing to change my feelings about him. I guess I should add that I do not like the trend that every concept is made and remade into a TV show, a movie, a play, a musical and then back to a TV show. Why can't there be any original concepts. I recently heard that there are plans afoot to remake FLIPPER yet again. Why? WHY?
