Mel Brooks' final craze: Silent Movie

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Movie
German title Mel Brooks' final craze: Silent Movie
Original title Silent Movie
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1976
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Mel Brooks
script Mel Brooks,
Ron Clark ,
Rudy De Luca ,
Barry Levinson
production Michael Hertzberg
music John Morris
camera Paul Lohmann
cut Stanford C. Allen
John C. Howard
occupation

Mel Brooks' last madness: Silent Movie (German DVD title: Silent Movie ) is a comedy from 1976. The director Mel Brooks , who subscribes to film parodies, pays homage to the silent film .

action

After the alcoholic director Mel Funn has managed to get dry, he wants to get back into the film business. For this reason, in the age of talkies, he submitted the script for a silent film project to his producer. He could use a box office hit, as his studio is about to be taken over by the “Gierschlund und Raffke” (Engulf & Devour) group. Funn's producer initially declares the silent film idea crazy, but agrees when Funn suggests only hiring big stars for the film. Mel Funn goes on a search with his friends Marty Eggs and Dom Bell.

A number of stars agree : Burt Reynolds (after showing himself to be helpful in an emergency); James Caan (after being embarrassed by Mel Funn's team); Liza Minnelli (for whom Mel and his friends dress up as knights); Anne Bancroft (who can convince Mel and his friends with a dance interlude); Paul Newman (who Mel and his friends chase each other in a wheelchair when they visit the studio boss who is hospitalized with a stroke). Only the mime Marcel Marceau cancels.

Meanwhile, Gierschlund and Raffke are trying to stop Mel Funn's silent film project and so drive the studio into ruin. Vilma Kaplan is assigned to Mel Funn, who is supposed to seduce Funn and distract him from his project. This succeeds at first, but Marty and Dom find out. Out of desperation, Mel Funn falls back on alcohol. Marty, Dom and Vilma go on a search and find the drunk Mel in the gutter. Lots of coffee helps him to sober up and still make the film. In a final act of sabotage, Gierschlund and Raffke want to burn the film roll shortly before the premiere, but Mel and his friends save it in time. The film was a success, the studio was saved, Mel and Vilma got married.

Reviews

“A comedy that is a satire and at the same time an homage to the slapstick art of Hollywood. A carefree pleasure that is presented as a silent film ... "

- Lexicon of international film

“The director's pleasure in tasteless gags - an intensive care unit is being converted into a gaming room - creates many eerily beautiful situations, but gradually the joke machine programmed for total entertainment runs empty. Some sequences, for example the dance number with Anne Bancroft, are of such an anarchic madness that you still get your money's worth. "

- Hans-Christoph Blumenberg , Die Zeit , November 5, 1976

Awards

backgrounds

Since it is an homage to silent film, not a word is spoken in Silent Movie either - except for one thing: Of all things, the only spoken word in the film comes from the mime Marcel Marceau when he declines his role offer with a "Non!" This earned the film an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as a sound film with the fewest spoken lines of dialogue.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Mel Brooks' Last Madness: Silent Movie. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Film tips . In: Die Zeit , No. 46/1976