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Mel Brooks debuted with a demented comedy,
Springtime for Hitler (1968) or The Producers (1968).
Max, a failed theatrical producer (Zero Mostel), has to romance old ladies in
order to finance his projects. Leo, a shy, naive, neurotic accountant (Gene
Wilder), catches him in the act but then conjures up a theory that a producer
can make more money with a flop than with a hit.
The secret is to raise a lot of money to produce a play that will survive only
the opening night: the unspent money is for the producer's to stash away.
Thus they embark in a desperate projet: discovering the worst playwright of
all times ("Springtime for Hitler", written by a fanatical nazi),
hiring the worst director (a transvestite with an amazing record of flops)
and the worst actor in the world (an absent-minded hippy nicknamed LSD).
Max also hires a young blond receptionist who doesn't understand English.
Certain that this play will never survive the premiere, they raise the money
from the old ladies promising hefty returns. Alas, the audience loves the
show, seeing it as a parody of nazism. The producers are ruined. Worse: the
author, the only one who hates the production, wants to kill them.
Desperate, the producers and the author try to blow up the set, but fail.
At the trial, they are found "incredibly guilty".
In jail, they organize the same show again and... the same scam (having
convicts instead of old ladies fund the show).
Silent Movie (1976)
The film is exactly what its title says: a silent film. Brooks draws freely on the comedies of the 1920sStan Laurel, Mack Sennett, the Marx Brothers, and so on. The story is semi-autobiographical and self-parodic: a disgraced director sets out to save his studio and relaunch his career with a silent movie. The idea seems absurd, but the studio boss is convinced. Brooks, accompanied by his faithful sidekicks Marty Feldman (dressed as an aviator) and Dom DeLuise, sets out to hunt down the Hollywood stars he wants to recruit (first Burt Reynolds and then James Caan).
The news reaches the owner of the rival studiothe one who wants to buy Brookss studioduring a lively and comic board meeting. The villain immediately sets off for Hollywood. This prompts Brooks to recruit more stars (Liza Minnelli and Anne Bancroft). His studio boss ends up in the hospital, and the three go to visit him (marching military-style through the corridors, with a comic scene in which Feldman vainly tries to catch the elevator). They inform him that they intend to recruit the French mime Marcel Marceau, whom they call from the hospital room. Marceau performs his mime routine and utters the only word in the film (no).
They run into Paul Newman by chance, confined to a wheelchair, and chase after him on wheelchairs of their own along the park paths (a parody of his ambitions as a race-car driver). Brooks falls in love with a dancer and, when his friends convince him she is a spy for the rival, he becomes an alcoholic and abandons the project. But his two friends and the woman find him among the homeless and persuade him to resume the project.
The film is finally completed. On the night of the premiere, however, the villains men steal the film reel. While the dancer entertains the audience with an exhausting striptease, the three recover the reel and, after a wild chase, reach the projection room with the film wrapped around Feldmans body. The film is a success and the studio is saved. Brooks and the dancer can marry.
Everything unfolds in the most comical way, according to the principles of repeated gags. The soundtrack is equally parodic, packed with all the expected clichés. It is also a tribute to vaudeville and the musical, because it is filled with Broadway-style dance numbers. Many of the gags have little to do with the plotthey are simply luxurious amusements by a seasoned comedian who had to insert them somewhere. And most of the encounters with famous actors are merely opportunities to poke gentle fun at them, as friends do.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Spaceballs (1987) is a parody of Star Wars but also a self-referential film (in which at one point the characters rewind the film itself and then
forward it).
The villainous Dark Helmet has been sent on a mission by the president of the planet Spaceballs to kidnap the beautiful and virtuous princess of a planet where the air is still pure, so that he can then blackmail the king and obtain some of that air for the hyper-polluted Spaceballs. To escape marrying the last remaining princea complete idiotthe princess flees with her loyal robot aboard a spaceship. On a third spaceship, a handsome young man and his dog-man assistant are in trouble because they owe money to a gangster who is half man and half pizza.
When the princess is attacked by Dark Helmet, she calls her father, who offers a reward to the young man to save her. The young man rescues the princess and then flees, pursued by Dark Helmets spaceship. Meanwhile, the president (Mel Brooks) amuses himself in the royal palace with his favorite twin companions, while the four fugitives crash on a planet that is one vast desert and are led by child monks to the secret refuge of an old sage (Mel Brooks). In that refuge, the gadgets for the film Spaceballs are actually being built (throughout the movie there are references to the film itself, which at one point is even replayed from the beginning on the Spaceballs stations video screen, and at another point is accidentally switched off).
After kidnapping the girl, Dark Helmet obtains the secret combination from the king. The president and Dark Helmet immediately set off for the planet to steal its air, just as the young man and the dog-man arrive to free the princess. They give chase and manage to prevent the villains from sucking up all the planets air with their gigantic vacuum cleaner. The young man then confronts Dark Helmet, who reveals that he is not related to him at all (in Star Wars he would be his father), and, thanks to the amulet given to him by the sage, manages to defeat him by striking him in the groin (during the duel, a cameraman filming the movie is hit). He blows up the spaceship and escapes with the princess and his partners. The planet is saved.
The princess is once again in church to marry the last remaining prince. But the sage appears to the young man and reveals that he too is a prince, allowing him to marry his beloved.
The head of the evil presidents space station crashes onto a planet inhabited by apes and embeds itself in the beach (a scene parodying Planet of the Apes).
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