Spaceballs

#8 in my ranking of Mel Brooks' filmography. The funniest movie Mel Brooks had made since Silent Movie, Spaceballs is an amusing film with solid jokes and a misplaced sense of satire that eludes actually hitting the intended target, George Lucas' Star Wars franchise, instead creating a generic space fantasy adventure without a satirical bite,…

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History of the World: Part I

#9 in my ranking of Mel Brooks' filmography. Mel Brooks just finally embraces the sketch comedy format in film after edging closer and closer to it over the previous few movies. It's also the first film where Brooks was his own boss as the owner of the production company Brooksfilms, and I wonder if Brooks…

High Anxiety

#12 in my ranking of Mel Brooks' filmography. I think it's pretty obvious that Mel Brooks loved the work of Alfred Hitchcock. I do not think he really understood it, though. I disagree with some contemporary reviewers who said that it was simply impossible to satirize or make a parody of Hitchcock films because of…

Silent Movie

#6 in my ranking of Mel Brooks’ filmography. I see this described as a parody of silent comedies, and it's not. It's...just a silent comedy. I'm not sure how you parody comedies, but I don't think it ends up being just another example of the genre. Without getting into the sheer levels of chaotic anarchy of…

Young Frankenstein

#1 in my ranking of Mel Brooks’ filmography. Gene Wilder shared the idea for this film with Mel Brooks while they were making Blazing Saddles together. Brooks loved the idea of the grandson of the famous Victor Frankenstein wanting nothing to do with the family of kooks he came from finding his way into the family…