By The TimesLedger
The three Tony Awards that Mel Brooks won for “The Producers,” currently on Broadway, can take their place on his trophy shelf. next to his Academy Award for the screenplay of “The Producers.” Following this 1968 film, Brooks quickly became one of the most successful creators of screen comedy, with a series of movies that lampooned the western (“Blazing Saddles”), the horror film (“Young Frankenstein”), the silent movie (“Silent Movie”), science-fiction (“Spaceballs”) and other Hollywood genres.
The American Museum of the Moving Image this weekend concludes its retrospective on Brooks, a Brooklyn native who turned 75 last month.
Brooks started as a Borscht Belt comedian in the 1940s, and wrote for Sid Caesar's “Show of Shows” in television's infancy in the 1950s. He made his legendary recording, “The 2000 Year Old Man” with Carl Reiner in 1960, and created the TV series “Get Smart,” a spoof of spy programs, in 1965.
“Parodying established Hollywood genres was a staple of Sid Caesar's television shows in the '50s,” said David Schwartz, AMMI's chief curator of film, “Brooks masterfully adapted this form to big-screen feature filmmaking.” Schwartz said Brooks' used an”irreverent, free-form approach, combining low-brow gags with high-brow sophistication.”
Here is this weekend's schedule:
Saturday, July 14, 2 p.m. YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN 1974, 105 mins. With Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman. This spoof of Universal's 1930s Frankenstein films is Brooks' most accomplished work as a director. Brooks' and Wilder's Oscar-nominated screenplay is brought to life by an ensemble featuring bug-eyed Marty Feldman as “Eye-gor,” Wilder as “Fronckensteen,” and Madeline Kahn as the uptight fiance who ultimately finds the “sweet mystery of life.”
4 p.m. HIGH ANXIETY 1977, 94 mins. With Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman. Brooks plays the height-fearing Harvard psychiatrist Richard Thorndyke, director of the PsychoNeurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, in this scattershot satire o nearly a dozen Hitchcock classics. The movie was billed as a “psyche-comedy” offering “danger, romance, intrigue…and a touch of kinkiness!”
Sunday, July 15, 2 p.m. THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART ONE 1981, 92 mins. With Brooks, Gregory Hines, Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman. The historical epic genre forms the basis for a series of vaudeville sketches that opens with Orson Welles narrating the “The Dawn of Man.” Other sketches include “The Stone Age,” “The Bible,” “The Future,” and ends with a Star Wars parody, “Jews in Space” that anticipates “Spaceballs.”
4 p.m. SPACEBALLS 1987, 96 mins. With Brooks, John Candy, Rick Moranis. John Candy is Barf, Rick Moranis is Dark Helmet, and Brooks is the wise ancient Yogurt, in this feature-length Star Wars takeoff that lampoons the movie and its merchandising. As Spaceballs the Doll says, “May the Schwartz be with you.”
Call 718-784-5520 for more information.
