Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For: Silent Movie - 1976

The Three Silent StoogesDom Bell (Dom DeLuise), Mel Funn (Mel Brooks), and Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman)

SILENT MOVIE 1976lecinemadreams.blogspot.com /2015/10/silent-movie-1976.html

Were I to try pinpoint the origin of my lifelong indifference to silent films, my best guess would be my traumatizedreaction to the opening sequence of that '60s TV show Silents Please, when I was just an impressionable tyke.Silents Please was a half-hour TV program highlighting films and stars of the silent era. It ran in reruns on Sundayafternoons but never, it seems, at scheduled times I could avoid. It always popped up as a time-filler following afootball game or (most terrifyingly) at night when I least expected it.

I don’t recall ever seeing an entire episode all the way through, for each episode began with a startling commandfrom an unseen announcer intoning "Silents Please!" (a pun I didn’t appreciate then and don’t appreciate now),which was my cue to high-tail it out of the living room before the unspoooling of the opening montage of silent movieclips which featured a quick “reveal” of Lon Chaney in full The Phantom of the Opera drag. It it scared the hell out ofme. The nightmares it inspired kept even comic silent movies off my radar for much of my childhood, an antipathythat stayed with me well into maturity.

In later years, when I was going to filmschool, my wholesale disinterest in classicfilms of the silent era made me a majority ofone amongst my peers. I saw and studied agreat many silent movies in Film Historyclass, but in the end I remained oneimpressed, yet unmoved. I appreciated whatthey were able to achieve with no dialogueand such low-tech equipment, but I neverresponded to the films themselves, findingthe silence to be distancing, not engaging.

It was during these college years that MelBrooks released Silent Movie, acontemporary silent film fashioned as aHollywood spoof and affectionate homage to the films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, MackSennett, and Hal Roach. Child of '70s cinema that I am, naturally this was the first silent film I remember ever takinga liking to.

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Touted as the first feature-length silent film to be made in over forty years, 20th Century-Fox released Silent Movie atthe height of Mel Brook’s popularity. Following the blockbuster success of Brooks’ western spoof BlazingSaddles, and his horror spoof Young Frankenstein, former television gag writer Mel Brooks, was hailed by criticsand audiences alike as the king of motion picture comedy. Rather remarkably, both films (directed and co-written byBrooks) came out in the same year. At the close of 1974, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein occupied the #1and #4 slots, respectively, on the list of the year's top boxoffice moneymakers.Prior to his late-blooming emergence as the comic voice of the '70s, my only familiarity with Brooks was as thewriter/director of one of my favorite comedies - The Producers (1967); the co-creator of one of my favorite TV shows- Get Smart; and for that 2000 Year Old Man skit he performed with Carl Reiner that I never really thought was allthat funny. Anyhow, by the mid-'70s, EVERYBODY was talking about Mel Brooks, and at 50 years of age, he wassuddenly a hit with the hip, college crowd. Naturally, with such a high degree of success, Brooks could virtually writehis own ticket when it came to his next film. Sort of.

When Brooks announced his follow-up project was to be a silent film, the natural assumption was that it was to be afilm in the vein of its predecessors—a period-accurate recreation of a 1920s era silent film with doses of irreverent,slightly raunchy, contemporary comedy. Perhaps because director Peter Bogdanovich had already beganproduction on his own comic film set in the early days of silent movies (Nickelodeon - 1976), Brooks opted to make acontemporary silent film set in the Hollywood of 1976. Its objective: to poke fun at the motion picture industry andgently spoof the comedies of yesteryear.

Since Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein had each successfully launched two of the most valuable players inthe Mel Brooks repertory off into careers of their own (Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn), their inability to participatein Brooks' followup project was a hurdle audiences were eager to see if Brooks (casting himself in his first lead role)could surmount.

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Vilma Kaplan: A Bundle of LustBernadette Peters, in what could be called the Madeline Kahn role, as the seductress

hired by Engulf & Devour to corrupt Mel Funn

Art Imitates LifeSilent Movie actually spoofs Mel Brooks' real-life efforts to get a studio

interested in his making this silent movie

Silent Movie’s premise casts Mel Brooks as Mel Funn, a once brilliant movie director whose career has hit the skidsdue to alcoholism. Hoping to make a comeback, Funn pitches his idea of making a modern-day silent movie to thehead of Big Pictures Studio (Sid Caesar). After initially rejecting the suggestion, the failing studio, desperate for a hitto avoid takeover by NY conglomerate Engulf & Devour, relents after Mel promises he can fill his movie with bigname stars. Funn, with the help of his two associates Bell & Eggs (DeLuise & Feldman), thus embarks on aslapstick quest to secure the biggest names in Hollywood for new his silent movie.

As a follow-up to the phenomenon that wasYoung Frankenstein, the level ofanticipation and expectation surroundingthe release of Silent Movie was both itsblessing and its curse. Folks expecting theenvelope-pushing effrontery of BlazingSaddles or the technically impeccablelunatic genius of Young Frankenstein wereforced to content themselves with a genial,sometimes hilarious, mostly hit-and-miss,comedy that delivered a good time, but notreally much else.There were gentle jibes at silent movies(verbose exchanges translated in terse titlecards); satirical jabs at the movie business(a sign on an executive's door reads"Current Studio Chief"); and sight gagsgalore. But it was all rather safe and old-fashioned. In fact, none of the jokes wouldhave looked out of place on a typicalepisode of Get Smart, and that had gone offthe air in 1970.

People went to see Young Frankenstein andBlazing Saddles multiple times, wanting torelive favorite comic moments or catch bits ofbusiness missed the first time out.Conversely, Silent Movie was a prettystraightforward affair. All the laughs areaccessible, obvious, and intentionally broad.Much in the same way that suspense in ahorror film can be sustained even aftermultiple viewings, while “gotcha” scaremoments in horror are effective only once;Silent Movie’s funny but unsubtle slapstickand vaudeville-level mugging didn’t invite a lot of repeat business. While failing to live up to the success of its predecessors, Silent Movie was nevertheless a sizable hit, ranking #11on boxoffice charts at the close of the year. Citing the silent movie angle as more gimmick than legitimate satiricaltarget, critical and popular opinion varied as to the relative merit of the enterprise as a whole. Most willing to forgivethe film's elemental inconsequence in favor of applauding what clearly was a labor of love for Brooks; an affectionatevalentine to the comics and style of comedy that inspired him in his youth.

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When Mel falls off the wagon, his friends embark on a search for him accompanied by the usual cliche dissolves of neon-lit nightspot signs.Only this time capped with a Brooks-ian touch of the unexpected

Sid Caesar as The Studio ChiefMel Brooks got his start as one of the staff writers for Caesar's 1950s

variety program Your Show of Shows

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMI’m from the generation raised on Laugh-In style blackout comedy. I remember when it was business as usual forcorny variety shows to encourage their movie star guests to “let their hair down” in groan-inducing, out-of-characterskits and musical numbers. I grew up at a time when stand-up comics all had pseudo-ethnic, faux chummy/hilariousnames like Shecky, Totie, Marty, Sandy, and Morty.In short, I came from the era that produced Mel Brooks.

Because my personal comedy tastes run towards the cornball and old-fashioned, I was perhaps less disappointed

than many when Silent Movie came out andproved to be a film so tame it could havebeen made before The Producers. But evenI had hoped for something more, even whileacknowledging that Brooks’ experiment withthe genre was largely successful and goodfor a few laughs. Not particularly memorable,retold over the watercooler at work,laughs...but laughs.With its excellent wall-to-wall score (JohnMorris) of jaunty, amusingly responsivemusic; hyperactive grab bag of exaggeratedsound effects; and its non-stop barrage ofsight gags, blackout skits, and slapstickphysical comedy; Silent Movie is as much asend-up of those old Warner Bros. cartoonsas it is a take-off on silent-era comedies.

PERFORMANCES

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Hilarious in 1976, meh in 2015Now that ALL major movie studios are owned by conglomerates, this jab at the 1967 acquisition of Paramount by Gulf & Western Industries

barely rates a smile

"Poverty Sucks!" - "Yea for the Rich!"Ron Carey as Devour / Harold Gould as Engulf

With Silent Movie, Mel Brooks’ usually behind-the-scenes talents (with the occasional voiceover or cameo) are forthe first time placed front and center, and, at least for me, the movie suffers for it. Brooks is an undeniably funnywriter, gag man, and skit performer; but he’s no actor. And I don't think I ever grasped or appreciated how significanta role a good comic actor plays in making a motion picture work (Gene Wilder is the all-time best) until I watchedwhat happened when a talented Catskills standup comic cast himself as a leading man.

As an actor, Brooks is very much in line withthe borscht belt comic Ernie Bernie (SidGould) from That Girl, or the woefullyschticky comic played by Johnny Haymer inAnnie Hall. They do bits of familiar comedybusiness and make with the funny faces, butthey don't know how to bring a character tolife. Brooks is the worst thing in the film. Ascute as he is, every moment he's on is likewhen you're at an office party and the bosscomes in trying to show you what an averageJoe he is. Brooks plays his material almostlike he's patting himself on the back forcoming up with it.

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Mel Brooks is too likable to actually spoil the film for me, but his lack of...what is it, lunacy? abandon?...seems tohave the effect of muting the talents of Feldman and DeLuise. As much as I admire Mel Brooks as a comedy genius,I can honestly say Mel Brooks' films only began to suffer after Mel Brooks began starring in them.

THE STUFF OF FANTASYThe star cameos in Silent Movie are a great deal of fun and a major part of the attraction when the film was released(remember, this was the era of the disaster film, star casting was all the rage). Back in the 1970s it was exhilaratingto see these celebrities poking fun at their images. Now, I watch these sequences filled with a great deal ofnostalgia. Not just because so many of its performers are no longer with us, but because the film is brimming withfamiliar faces. Comics, character actors, and TV personalities whose faces you recognize, but whose names youoften don't know.

Ranking of celebrity cameos. Favorite to least-favorite:

1. Surrounded by gigolos, Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Mel Brooks for any youngsters out there) looks to be having a greatdeal of fun playing herself as a haughty movie star (she was the original choice to star in Mommie Dearest, andwould have been great). Not only does she get to dance, but she dazzles us with her ability to cross her eyes...oneat a time!

2. Oddly enough, Burt Reynold's egotistical movie star bit plays much funnier now than it did in 1976. Back in the'70s, Burt was something of a male Jayne Mansfield and seemed to be on everything from Hollywood Squares toJohnny Carson, nonstop. In each instance overworking the "egotistical star" bit to death. Fresh off the flop LuckyLady with Liza Minnelli, Reynolds was nevertheless a really hot property at the time, with two other films in releasein 1976 and Smokey and the Bandit just a year away.

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3. Liza Minnelli, the star I most wanted to see in a Mel Brooks movie, is pretty much wasted in a segment requiringher to do little but react to the slapstick antics of Brooks, Feldman, and DeLuise (or their stunt doubles). Decked outin a costume from her Vincente Minnelli directed flop-to-be A Matter of Time and rebounding from the debacle thatwas Lucky Lady, the Cabaret star wouldn't appear in another hit movie until 1981s Arthur. And she was only the co-star of that one!

4. What's Marty Feldman looking at there? Tough guy James Caan plays off his macho but dumb image in a briefphysical comedy sequence involving an off-balance dressing room trailer. The sequence is cute, but doesn't havemuch impact.

5. A wheelchair-bound Paul Newman, looking ridiculously gorgeous at 50, spoofs his love of auto racing by leadingMel and his associates on a high speed chase. Once again, an amusing sequence, but so reliant on stunt doubles,

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Another Brooks-ian Sight Gag

Newman winds up making a cameo in his cameo.

6. The use of legendary French mime Marcel Marceau in a silent movie is inspired and provided the film with one ofits biggest laughs. But I'm afraid his brief sequence (whimsically involving walking against the wind to answer aphone) only reminds me of how simultaneously terrifying and annoying mimes can be.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I don’t pretend to know how or why comedy works, but I know that a great many fondly remembered sequencesfrom comedies work well for me precisely because they are silent. I’m no fan of Jerry Lewis, but his 1960 directingdebut, The Bellboy, is a favorite because he keeps his mouth shut in it for all but the last scene. And while no oneshould be deprived of hearing Peter Sellers saying, “Birdie num num” in an Indian accent, Blake Edwards’ The Party(1968) is at its most uproarious when it’s silent.When it comes to updates of the silentmovie, Mel Brook’s Silent Movie doesn’tcome anywhere near approaching the comiceloquence and grace of Michel Hazanvicius’Oscar-winning silent film The Artist (2011);but Brooks gets points for being the first outof the gate and for succeeding in achievingwhat I honestly think were his modest goals.He made a funny little movie that said“Thank you” to the silent comics andfilmmakers who inspired him to become acomedy legend himself.

As for me, know I’ve grown fonder of silentmovies over the years (Metropolis-1927, is a favorite), but I’ve still yet to garner the courage to watch LonCheney's The Phantom of the Opera.

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I worked at Honda dealership for a time in 1979, and Mel Brooks came in to the service department to pick up his car.I remember asking a co-worker for permission to temporarily hijack his job (escort the customer to his car) so I could talk to Brooks for a while

and get his autograph.

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES

BONUS MATERIALHere's the intro to the TV program, Silents Please. I guess I scared easily as a kid.

Copyright © Ken Anderson10/11

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