{"id":5348,"date":"2010-12-02T22:55:50","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T03:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=5348"},"modified":"2010-12-02T22:55:50","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T03:55:50","slug":"history-of-the-world-part-1-1981-mel-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/5348","title":{"rendered":"History of the World, part 1 (1981, Mel Brooks)"},"content":{"rendered":"

What was initially announced<\/a> as Auteur Completion Month is now the longer-term Auteur Completion Project (because it can’t be “completion” if I give up when the month changes). I don’t especially aim to watch everything Mel Brooks has been involved with (never saw Dracula: Dead and Loving It<\/em> because his previous two were so bad) but I noticed that his one classic-era comedy feature (oops, besides The Twelve Chairs<\/em>) I’d never seen was the one Jonathan Rosenbaum placed on his 1000 favorite movies list. And now that I’ve seen it, I must conclude that it was a half-remembered nostalgic favorite for JR, not one that received much recent, critical thought.<\/p>\n

Starts off unpromisingly, with a jokey Orson Welles voiceover (the year before Slapstick<\/a><\/em>; maybe the great man should’ve hired an agent) and a hokey caveman sketch starring 50’s comedian Sid Caesar (whose last movie to date was Stuart Gordon’s The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit<\/em>). Catalog of human innovation (“the first artist… the first art critic!”) like one of those punny water-treading late Tex Avery shorts, or a sub-Mr. Show<\/em> sketch (“man’s greatest achievement: the wheelbarrow”).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Some biblical business follows (including my favorite gag, the 15… 10 Commandments). Next: waaay too much time (over half the movie?) spent in Rome running away from Emperor Dom DeLuise, Empress Madeline Khan and 50’s comedian Shecky Greene.<\/p>\n

L-R: possibly Ron Carey (Silent Movie, High Anxiety), maybe Mary-Margaret Humes (of an upcoming Michael Madsen\/Roddy Piper horror film), definitely Gregory Hines (in his first film), and grimacingly Mel Brooks. I didn’t take very good notes.<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Making up for the overlong Roman piece is an extended, extravagant musical version of the Spanish Inquisition, which could’ve stood on its own as a great short film. By now, narrator Welles has wandered away from the movie, off to film some Moby Dick<\/em> closeups of himself.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then Brooks is King Louis XVI of France, and also the piss-bucket boy chosen to replace him in event of a revolution. He helps the daughter of a deranged, imprisoned Spike Milligan free her father and… hell, I can’t remember the storyline, but it involves Harvey Korman (Lord Love a Duck<\/a><\/em>, voice of the Great Gazoo on The Flintstones<\/em>) as a character named Count De Monet, and in my second favorite joke of the movie, Brooks tries to run down a forced-perspective hallway.<\/p>\n

Bunuel did it first<\/a>:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

“Coming attractions” finale features a cute Jews In Space<\/em> trailer, a premonition of Spaceballs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Cameos by Moon Over Parador<\/em> director Paul Mazursky, Diner<\/em> director Barry Levinson, Hugh Hefner as himself, freshly Oscar-nominated John Hurt as Jesus, Jackie Mason, and an uncredited Bea Arthur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was initially announced as Auteur Completion Month is now the longer-term Auteur Completion Project (because it can’t be “completion” if I give up when the month changes). I don’t especially aim to watch everything Mel Brooks has been involved with (never saw Dracula: Dead and Loving It because his previous two were so bad) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[357,820,957,897,1178],"class_list":["post-5348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1980s","tag-bible","tag-dinosaurs","tag-john-hurt","tag-mel-brooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5348"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5506,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions\/5506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}