Silent Movie
| Year: | 1976 |
| Director: | Mel Brooks |
| Cast: | Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters, Sid Caeser, Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman, Liza Minelli, Anne Bancroft, Marcel Marceau |
Like James Bond, a Mel Brooks comedy promises a certain thing and usually delivers it adequately - plenty of shtick, sight gags and lowbrow. By the time he made Life Stinks, Brooks' star in Hollywood had well and truly gone out, and the careers of stalwarts like Gene Wilder and Sid Caeser with him.
But in his heydey he was the comic assassin of his time, picking a subject (the Western, Hitchcock thriller, and in this case, the silent film), and attaching every tacked-on gag the genre could possibly hold.
He plays a film producer who - with the help of sidekicks Feldman and DeLuise - plans a comeback by making a silent film. If only he can sign the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time he'd have a guaranteed hit.
Selling it to the studio boss, the trio spend the rest of the film hunting down the A-listers with the expected funny results. Not Brooks' best, definitely not his worst, but staple fare.
But in his heydey he was the comic assassin of his time, picking a subject (the Western, Hitchcock thriller, and in this case, the silent film), and attaching every tacked-on gag the genre could possibly hold.
He plays a film producer who - with the help of sidekicks Feldman and DeLuise - plans a comeback by making a silent film. If only he can sign the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time he'd have a guaranteed hit.
Selling it to the studio boss, the trio spend the rest of the film hunting down the A-listers with the expected funny results. Not Brooks' best, definitely not his worst, but staple fare.