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"Don't you know slapstick is dead?" The precedent is Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc?, or earlier still, Butler's It's a Great Feeling. Hollywood plays itself, Big Studio Pictures ("Ars est Pecunia") faces a takeover by Engulf and Devour ("Our fingers are in everything"). Its salvation rests in the comeback of the has-been cinéaste (Mel Brooks), who searches for stars with elephantine sidekick (Dom DeLuise) and "mild-mannered pervert" (Marty Feldman) in tow. The villain (Harold Gould) worships the Mighty Dollar and foams at the mention of low profits, his secret weapon is "a bundle of lust" (Bernadette Peters). Aggressive geniality governs the experiment, nothing to do with silents despite the continuous soundscape of honks and whistles and intertitles that transform a clearly mouthed profanity into "You bad boy." (A sloppy nod to Chaplin's seesawing cabin is dutifully included, not nearly as heartfelt as a lingering glimpse of Harry Ritz.) Celebrity cameos include sweet-on-himself Burt Reynolds with too many hands amid suds, James Caan and the importance of athletic balance, Liza Minnelli slipping and sliding with suits of armor, Anne Bancroft tangoing at the Rio Bomba Club, and Paul Newman's motorized-wheelchair Grand Prix. (Marcel Marceau's minute of windy pantomime sets up the film's most telegraphed punchline.) The romantic image is a merry-go-round horse plopping wooden cubes, the hospital visit turns the pings of a life-support machine into a game of Pong. "I'm all right—except for the constant pain." Kubrick's Coke machine is made to launch grenades, the oversized bottle makes a handy cross in the Skid-Row Calvary ("Truly he is the king of winos," cf. Life Stinks). And so forth, rippling on to Airplane! and Top Secret! and The Naked Gun. With Sid Caesar, Ron Carey, Liam Dunn, Fritz Feld, Carol Arthur, Valerie Curtin, and Charlie Callas.
--- Fernando F. Croce |