Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Mel Brooks, Gregory Hines, Madeline Kahn, Orson Welles
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.
Did I Like It: I usually feel the compulsion to add a few disclaimers as I launch in to any review of a Mel Brooks movie. I’m going to be hard pressed to say he’s got a better movie than Young Frankenstein (1974), and try as I might I’ll never quite care for Spaceballs (1987) if for no other reason than I never really believe that Brooks himself has any interest in making the movie.
Additionally, I can’t help but qualify what is to come and say that I’m almost always convinced that a sketch comedy film can’t help but broadcast to it s viewer that not one single idea contained within is funny enough to support a movie of its own.
So, it’s a bit of a surprise to me that on this viewing, History kind of works. Sure, there are a more than a few dated stabs at humor that ring not only as unfunny, but hateful, but there are also more than few laughs that still work.
Madeline Kahn may be tragically underused in the proceedings, but les we forget that any movie featuring Kahn should probably get a positive review. Without her, Clue (1985) would be a vaguely embarrassing amalgamation of an otherwise engaging cast.
And we’ve got Orson Welles offering narration? Maybe this all can’t overcome the limits of a feature-length series of sketches. Even Monty Python were bringing material from their television work when they worked with the genre, and Meaning of Life has some kind of loose structure keeping things as one idea worth more of our time. Maybe it all feels like Brooks is vaguely embarrassed by each idea, but never quite enough to actually abandon them. But if we’ve got Welles’ voice as our constant throughout the scrambling, it’s safe to say this is probably the classiest examples of the genre.