Mel Brooks, 86, was celebrated by the American Film Institute this month for his incredible contribution to the film industry as a writer, producer and director. In all seriousness though, he was really honored for The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, three of the funniest films ever made. Despite those achievements, Brooks has made plenty of other films, some good and some bad. Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein were followed by two more parodies that were on a much smaller scale - Silent Movie (1976) and High Anxiety (1977). Silent Movie is an uneven, but hilarious tribute to the great silent comics, while High Anxiety is a full-length tribute to the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.
High Anxiety finds Brooks as Dr. Richard Thorndike (a play on Cary Grant's name in North By Northwest), one of the best psychiatrist in the country. He gets hired as the top doctor for The Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, much to the dismay of Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman) and Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman). Diesel and Montague had been hoping to take over the facility themselves and were expecting to after they killed Thorndike's predecessor. So, they let Thorndike go to a meeting in San Francisco, where they frame him for murder.
After the murder, Thorndike is forced to prove his innocence while he deals with his own condition - “High Anxiety.” However, he has the help of his dim-witted driver Brophy (Ron Carey) and Victoria Brisbane (Madeline Kahn), whose father is being held by Diesel and Montague.
The genius of Brooks' parodies in the 1970s is that they were parodies of entire genres, not specific movies. In addition, story was key. While he didn't have Gene Wilder for High Anxiety, the writing team of Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy DeLuca and Barry Levinson (yeah, the guy who made Rain Man) proved to be adept replacements. They crafted a hilarious story of a troubled psychiatrist thrown in a ridiculous situation. Sure, the basics are lifted from Spellbound, but aside from madmen running the madhouse, the similarities end. The writing team liberally borrows from every Hitchcock film, from The Birds to Psycho. Again, since they weren't limited to one franchise (like Spaceballs) or specific movie (like Robin Hood: Men in Tights), they could craft an original story that works in the universe or genre they're parodying.
On the acting side, High Anxiety is the first film where Brooks takes a lead role and speaks. He had the lead in Silent Movie, but he didn't talk so the physical comedian in him ran the movie. For High Anxiety, he does often show signs of weakness as an actor, but that's part of the joke isn't it? You've got a 50-year-old Jewish guy trying to be Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart in a Hitchcock movie! Brooks always filled his films with some of the best comedic character actors on the planet. Who else but Cloris Leachman would hatch the idea of making herself look uglier than even the director envisioned to make Diesel so evil? And Harvey Korman is at his absolute best, especially when he's successfully scaring a patient and reawakening his werewolf nightmares. Madeline Kahn rapport with Brooks is also a major key in making the last act of the film work. Finally, there's the wonderful Howard Morris as Thorndyke's mentor, Professor Lilloman (“Now climb, you son of a b**tch!”).
High Anxiety isn't as outrageous as Brooks' later films and, as much as some people might like History of the World: Part 1 and Spaceballs, it could be argued that it's his last grasp at a great movie. With History of the World, he mashed together everything he was known for into one film and it just doesn't work as a decent film. And Spaceballs begins the decline that dominates the rest of his career – quick laughs and little plot.
Brooks' tremendous contributions to film were made mostly in the '70s. Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein really established him as the premier parodist in the film world and Silent Movie and High Anxiety continued that. If you love Brooks' 1970 film The Twelve Chairs, you may wish that he stayed with the smaller-scale comedies and if you love his works in the '70s, you probably wish that he stuck with the genre parodies. For me, all I can hope for is that Mel takes one more stab at film making. Based on his hilarious interview in his PBS American Masters special, he's still got it.
On Home Video: Fox released High Anxiety on Blu-ray back in 2009 as part of its 9-film Mel Brooks Collection set and it's available separately. The disc has a great 30-minute documentary with interviews form the writers and Brooks, which is really all you need on the film. It covers the Hitchcock references and Brooks' relationship with the Master of Suspense.
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image: Amazon
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