The Mel
Brooks Collection [Blu-ray]
(Mel
Brooks & Alan Johnson,
1970-1993)
Review by Leonard Norwitz
Comment:
The rear cover page for Fox's Mel Brooks collection reads:
"Includes nine of the best Mel Brooks films." Since there
are only ten, and the one that's missing – The Producers
– is arguably the best or, at least, the most consistently
brilliant, one might as easily have written: "Includes nine
of the worst Mel Brooks films". That would have had a shot
at being funny instead of pointing up the obvious
oversight. The Producers is not a careless omission:
Since MGM was responsible for the DVD, we can assume that
there are other reasons why Fox chose to omit it from this
collection. In any case, this is the same collection that
appeared on DVD back in 2006. The titles are the same, but
they are now all in high definition, with a few new extra
features and all but one in uncompressed audio.
So let's get the most burning questions out of the way
quickly: The titles already available on Blu-ray (Blazing
Saddles, Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs)
are presented here unaltered. Even Blazing Saddles
comes complete with Warner logos and disc artwork, but no
upgraded audio track (thus the only title without
uncompressed audio).
But that still leaves six Mel Brooks movies new to high
definition and, of them, the only really weak image is
High Anxiety. Sorry, fans. It's not bad, just thin and
lackluster. The best looking transfers are Blazing
Saddles, Silent Movie, and Robin Hood: Men in
Tights. The surprise here is The Twelve Chairs,
long a personal favorite Brooks film, and given the short
end of the video lollypop since forever, looks very good on
Blu-ray. We haven't seen it's like since the day it came
out almost 40 years ago. I'll comment briefly on some of
the new extra features as they appear on each disc.
Package
Reviews:
The Twelve Chairs
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1970
Runtime:
93 minutes
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1
Codec:
AVC
Capacity:
50 GB
Featured Audio Mix:
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Dubs:
Portuguese, French & Spanish
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese & Chinese
The Movie: 7
Based on a novel by Yevgeni Petrov and Ilya Lif, The
Twelve Chairs is Mel Brooks' least hysterical movie. In
many ways, it's the least like him: We have less the feeling
that he is constantly waiting in ambush with a trip rope and
a wink at the audience. It's funny and, at times, nutty,
but does not exert itself in that direction at every
non-opportunity. Ron Moody (recently Fagin in the 1968
Academy Award winner, Oliver!) is Ippolit
Vorobyaninov, once a nobleman in Czarist Russia, who sets
out to locate the dining room set of chairs in which the
family jewels are thought to be hidden. He is aided in his
efforts by conman and opportunist Ostap Bender, an
exceedingly young Frank Langella. Dom DeLuise, soon to be a
staple in several Brooks movies, is Father Fyodor, the
nemesis in the plot, and the only presence – even more so
than Mel himself – that reminds us who is writing and
directing this show. The big chorus "Hope for the Best,
Expect the Worst" is based on the same source that Brahms
used for his Hungarian Dance No. 4 in F minor. The exteriors
are shot in Yugoslavia.
Image/Audio: 7/6
Presented at 1.85:1, I can't remember The Twelve Chairs
ever looking this good – certainly not on video. Source
elements are transferred with little fuss and relatively
free of defects, with film grain intact, though some minor
speckling is present on and off. Color is painterly;
contrast, due to lighting that often reminds us of
television of the day, is flat. On the other hand, darkly
lit scenes are often too dark. Audio is front-directed for
the most part, as expected for a comedy film of this
vintage. Dialogue is well managed, with a fulsome, if
bright chorus.
CLICK EACH
BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Blazing Saddles
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1974
Runtime:
93 minutes
Aspect Ratio:
2.40:1
Codec:
AVC
Capacity:
50 GB
Featured Audio Mix:
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
Dubs:
French & Spanish
Subtitles:
English SDH, French & Spanish
The Movie: 8
Roger Ebert observes in his review from 1974
HERE (at "One of the hallmarks of Brooks' movie
humor has been his willingness to embrace excess" and
Blazing Saddles may be the most successful of his films
in that respect. Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) is up to
earballs in a land grabbing scheme and convinces the
governor (Mel Brooks) to send in a black sheriff Black Bart
(Cleavon Little) to the white bread town of Ridge Rock so
that property values will fall and townspeople will up and
leave. Bart hires the town drunk ex-gunfighter (Gene
Wilder) to help him in his hour of need, but Hedley brings
in Lili Von Stupp (Madeline Kahn, in a brilliant Marlene
Dietrich parody) for distraction. It would have worked on
me.
Image/Audio: 9/6
This is the same 2.40:1 transfer that appeared on Warner a
while back, and hasn't been upgraded to uncompressed audio.
All the same the image is very good, with telling textures
(look at all those leathers and suedes) and glistening gun
barrels. Film grain is present, as it should be, though in
the lighter scenes it becomes a little prominent. Sharpness
is very good; blacks are black and uncrushed. Stereo was
SOP for CinemaScope features as far back as 1955, even for
dramas and musicals, so it still comes as something of a
surprise to me when I come across mono twenty years later.
It's wouldn't have been that hard to pull off, you know –
stereo, I mean. The transition to a surround mix has to be
a painstaking operation if done right, which this isn't. I
think such things should be left alone except for the
music.
Young Frankenstein
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1974
The Blu-ray is fully reviewed and compared
HERE
Silent Movie
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1976
Runtime:
87 minutes
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1
Codec:
AVC
Capacity:
50 GB
Featured Audio Mix:
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Dubs:
French & Spanish
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish, Korean & Chinese
The Movie: 7
It's interesting to follow Roger Ebert's observations on Mel
Brooks over the years.
HERE he describes Brooks as an "anarchist" who
will do anything for a laugh, and there are plenty of
opportunities in this bizarre idea for a movie made almost
50 years after the development of sound on film: a movie
without spoken dialogue – well, just about, and even the
exception makes for a classic punch line. Set in about the
year it was made, Mel Brooks plays a once-respected director
who tries to sell the powers that be at Big Pictures Studio
on a fantastic idea to get them out of financial doldrums
and prevent a takeover from the evil Engulf & Devour
conglomerate. With his sidekicks, Marty Feldman and Dom
DeLuise they lookup a bunch of A-list stars (among them:
Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Paul Newman and Liza Minnelli) to
try to convince them to make a silent movie.
Image/Audio: 8/7
Overall the image is bright, colorful, generally but
inconsistently sharp, with good blacks and acceptable
contrast. Specks are occasional but not a major problem.
It's kind of interesting to hear what a soundtrack could
sound like with only music and effects. The music opens the
soundfield beyond reason, which is part of what makes it
droll. Effects are distributed properly, if unremarkably,
about the room.
High Anxiety
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1977
Runtime:
94 minutes
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1
Codec:
AVC
Capacity:
50 GB
Featured Audio Mix:
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Dubs:
Portuguese, French & Spanish
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean & Chinese
The Movie: 6
Continuing our review of Roger Ebert's reviews of Mel Brooks
movies, he liked this movie less than I did
HERE: finding its humor overkill. But then he
saw it more of a satire than I did. I think it plays quite
well, maybe better, if you don't know the references. I
agree with Ebert that its best moments are not Hitchcock
derived (the film is dedicated to the master of suspense)
like the casting of Cloris Leachman as the sado-Nazi Nurse
Diesel (some would argue this is not satire, but
uncomfortably close to the truth). Brooks plays Dr. Richard
Thorndyke who arrives at the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for
the Very, Very Nervous as its new director. Turns out he
has a fear of heights to the point where he can hardly bear
the glass-faced elevator at San Francisco's Hyatt Regency.
Look for director Barry Levinson standing in for Norman
Bates.
Image/Audio: 5/7
High Anxiety
gets the weakest transfer in the collection: its 1.85:1
image is dull, flat, snowy, soft, grainy, and overbright,
though it improves slightly in the later reels. Perhaps the
real mystery here is: why so weak? On the other hand, I
found no digital manipulations in the transfer. Similarly
for the uncompressed audio mix, which is engaging and varied
as called for. The music is good enough to get its own
Isolated Track if you're so disposed. If I counted
correctly,
Hitchcock and Mel: Spoofing the Master of Suspense
is new for the Blu-ray set.
The Blu-ray fully reviewed
HERE
History of the World: Part 1
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1981
Runtime:
92 minutes
Aspect Ratio:
2.35:1
Codec:
AVC
Capacity:
50 GB
Featured Audio Mix:
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Dubs:
Portuguese, French & Spanish
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean & Chinese
The Movie: 4
The childish bathroom humor that seeps into High Anxiety
ripens to maturity in this vulgar, R-Rated disaster of a
movie that, despite itself, manages some of Brook's funniest
moments. Brooks covers the history of mankind from caveman
to the French Revolution, with some segments hardly a minute
in length other closer to half an hour. Sid Caesar is funny
as the caveman leader. Mel Brooks is not funny as Moses who
walks over his best line as he delivers the fifteen
commandments to the Israelites. Madeline Kahn is Roman
Empress Nympho (that says it all). Pamela Stephenson is a
reluctant succulent who begs Louis XVI to let her father out
of the Bastille. Harvey Korman is the lecherous Count de
Monet. Orson Welles is bored as the Narrator. My problem
with the movie is that a good deal of it would have played
better as 1 or 2 panel cartoons and that elsewhere Brooks
has become lazy as director. The framing of most shots are
pedestrian. The pacing is . . . well, better ask: what
pacing? Ebert
HERE and I are in agreement on this one which he
describes as "unfunny bad taste."
Image/Audio: 8/8
As with Robin Hood: Men in Tights we are grateful
that the 2.35:1 widescreen image with its colorful and
varied production values for History of the World: Part 1
made the transition to high definition video pretty much
intact. The two big set pieces: Ancient Rome and The French
Revolution are alive with color, texture, gaudy costumes and
gaudier makeup. Print damage is close to zero and digital
manipulations likewise. The audio mix is also quite good,
supporting the bright colorful visuals perfectly. The music
is splashy and the dialogue crisp. There may not be much
going on in the surrounds, but that works just fine for this
movie.
The Blu-ray fully reviewed
HERE
To Be or Not To Be
Original 1942 Screenplay: Edwin Justin Mayer
1983 Screenplay: Ronny Graham & Thomas Meehan
Directed by Alan Johnson
1983
Runtime:
107 minutes
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1
Codec:
AVC
Capacity:
50 GB
Featured Audio Mix:
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Dubs:
Portuguese, French & Spanish
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean & Chinese
The Movie: 5
Not satisfied with parodies of movie genres and spoofing the
master of suspense, Mel Brooks takes on what should have
been impossible or, at best, pointless – spoofing a classic
comedy – in this case from none other than the great Ernst
Lubitsch. To Be or Not To Be was made late in 1941,
just before America's entrance into the war. The idea of
satirizing Nazism must have struck the Hollywood
establishment as both brilliant and titillatingly dangerous.
(Chaplin, by the way, didn't find Hitler funny, just
ridiculous and frightening.) Just how much the American
public knew or understood about Hitler's Nazism is anyone's
guess – for Americans were the target audience (Where else
besides England could this movie have played then?) And yet,
there the little man with strange moustaches is for all to
see, walking about the streets of Warsaw without a care in
the world. Ach! With radio star Jack Benny as the egoistic
lead actor of a Polish theatre company and comedienne Carole
Lombard (recently married to Clark Gable) as his flirtatious
wife, it's hard to imagine how Lubitsch thought he could
bring this off – or, conversely, how he could have thought
he could possibly miss. As for the remake: it's one thing
to insult Mein Fuhrer, but another thing entirely to insult
Lubitsch!
To be fair and correct, this isn't really a Mel Brooks movie
in that he neither wrote nor directed it. He isn't an actor
either in the same sense that Woody Allen is an actor. We
rarely see anything going on inside the broad line reading.
It's all vaudeville and clown makeup. That said Roger Ebert
HERE
liked Brooks better than I did. Among other things, the
adaptation telegraphs every move the plot is about to make,
robbing it of any possibility of suspense. I also felt the
idea of folding in homosexual victims of concentration camps
and Jewish refugees to be out of place or, at best,
pointless in a work of such buffoonery. The tear shed at
Shylock's speech has the opposite of its intended effect.
Like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, after a
brilliant opening musical number the movie has no place to
go but down.
Image/Audio: 6/6
An evaluation of picture quality for To Be or Not To Be
is made problematic because of its wildly fluctuating
brightness levels. In a single scene from one camera angle
to another the picture inexplicably gets darker. This
effect is so distracting that it made other considerations
superfluous. So unless I missed something else important,
the Blu-ray image is otherwise satisfactory, but hardly
demonstrable. There is a considerable use of soft filtering
that gives the picture a warm - or, in this instance, cool –
fuzzy look, but I found little if any transfer issues that
further degraded the picture. The audio, even in its DTS-HD
MA mix is not stellar: dialogue is a little wooly and
surrounds are employed only occasionally (as for a plane
passing overhead), though I would not have expected more.
Brooks and Bancroft: A Perfect Pair
is a new featurette that complements the disc nicely.
Spaceballs
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1987
The Blu-ray fully reviewed
HERE
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Written & Directed by Mel Brooks
1993
Runtime:
104 minutes
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1
Codec:
AVC
Capacity:
50 GB
Featured Audio Mix:
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Dubs:
French & Spanish
Subtitles:
English SDH & Spanish
The Movie: 4
Well, Mel, it's been quite a climb, sort of like the one by
Dante and Virgil. He started with the likes of The
Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young
Frankenstein and ended with Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
Itself a parody of the Kevins Reynolds and Costner's
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Brook's last movie is a
better vehicle for sending up or hommaging or whatever than
To Be or Not To Be, this much is certain. I like the
title and the line by the generally underrated Cary Elwes
("unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English
accent.") A couple of the supporting actors are worth our
time: Roger Rees as the Sheriff of Rottingham and the
awesome Tracey Ullman as Latrine, the ugliest witch on the
planet with a yen for Prince John. Amy Yasbeck is lovely to
look at, but Richard Lewis as Prince John is a bore, and
Dave Chappelle as Achoo is not nearly as funny as he can
be. Mel Brooks' direction here is lazy and without a clue
as to how to fill his frame. There is no excuse for a
parody to look amateurish in the bargain. (I couldn't find a
review from Mr. Ebert – perhaps Brook's last movie was more
than the usually affable Roger could take.)
Image/Audio: 8/8
Wouldn't you know that one of the lesser movies in this
collection gets one of the better transfers! Such is death,
I guess. In all fairness I should add that the visuals
benefit from its highly resolved, color-rich image.
Dimensionality would be better is it were lit accordingly;
on the other hand, detail and contrast are very good. The
DTS-HD MA mix does what it can to breathe some life into
this otherwise dull movie, and I have to admit it almost
succeeded. The music score, once again ably supplied by
John Morris, as he has from the start for Mr. Brooks, offers
some majesty and the occasional humping. Effects busily
engage the surrounds with everything from whistling arrows
to Latrine's bubbling pot.
The Blu-ray fully reviewed
HERE
Extra Extras:
Fox's presentation for their new Mel Brooks Collection
takes into account the criticism of their Planet of the
Apes set, namely the problematic disc holders. For that
set, the hubs are so pointless that I have had to remove the
discs and store them in separate sleeves altogether. Here,
they receive a simple slot, one or two per page. The book
that holds the discs is a trifle flimsy but it works. In
complete contrast is the second of the two books in the set:
a 120-page hardcover of the same dimensions: "It's Good to
be the King" which is a hefty, full color glossy overview of
the movies in the set. In such a comprehensive book, it is
absurd that The Producers gets no mention, even
though not in the "collection". I can't say much for the
text, it just heaps praise upon praise in flowery language
that is entirely unlike the subject of these essays. Kind
of nauseating after a stretch. For all the text, there is
no index for extra features anywhere.
Extra Features Summary
7 Previously Issued Featurettes
6 New Featurettes for Blu-ray
4 New Trivia Tracks
5 Isolated Score Tracks
Previously Issued Commentaries
Previously Issued Interviews
Previously Issued Documentaries
Still Galleries
Expanded Blu-ray Case w/ flippages
Street Date: December 15, 2009
Recommendation: 7
To Buy or Not To Buy, that is the congestion. In Fox's new
Blu-ray Mel Brooks Collection of nine movies, six are
new to HD. Two of Brooks' three best films are already
available on Blu-ray, and they are identical to the ones in
this set. (The Producers is still holding out.) All
but one of the transfers look good, some very good. (High
Anxiety being too nervous to look normal.) The
hardcover book is nice looking, but repetitive and
uninformative. The new extra features are nice, but not
reason enough for purchase. It comes down to how much you
like Mel Brooks unique brand of humor. If you do, the price
is reasonable when you consider it on a per title basis –
about $10 per movie at Amazon right now. If you already own
Mel Brooks on Blu-ray, buy now and give away your present
titles as holiday gifts.
Leonard Norwitz
LensViews
December 16th, 2009
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