I agree with BobO'Link about The Producers, which I think was Brooks' best, followed by Young Frankenstein.

I had the good fortune to see Young Frankenstein shortly after seeing Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein (WNET regularly did a horror movie marathon on Halloween), so that I even recognized some shots from those films copied in Young Frankenstein, which is rare for me.

If you can, your best bet is to begin with The Producers (if you've seen it, can't watch it too many times). It's a rare example of a totally original (as far as I know) Mel Brooks movie. I think that the main problem with most of Brooks' films is that they are parodies, and he is content with silly jokes about genre conventions. I don't understand the love for Blazing Saddles, which for me had only one scene of real worth, Cleavon Little holding himself hostage. The townspeople freely used the word which must not be spoken, and the discordance between the racism apparent in their language and the conventional sentiment that they are expressing makes a real point in a movie that is otherwise mostly mocking a dead genre. Gene Wilder, Cleavon Little, Harvey Korman and perhaps a few others did brilliant work, but in service of a minor concept.

High Anxiety tries to do to Hitchcock what Young Frankenstein does to Frankenstein, but is much less successful. It's been a long time since I've seen it, but my recollection is that I found The Twelve Chairs the third most enjoyable of Brooks' movies, probably because it wasn't a parody, and was quite manic. I haven't seen most of his other movies, because the idea of something like a parody of Robin Hood movies seems like killing a fly with an atomic bomb.

The other problem that I have with Brooks is the Yiddishisms. He thinks that he is being hilarious, but if, like me and presumably most of his audience, you know at best ten Yiddish words, he is being deliberately obscure. I have read that blucher means glue in Yiddish, so that is the joke of the reaction of the horses to Frau Blücher's name in Young Frankenstein, but if I knew that at the time that I was watching the movie at best it would have earned the smallest of smiles.

I would recommend My Favorite Year, which Brooks produced. Benjy Stone is supposed to be based on the young Mel Brooks working on Your Show of Shows. He is sweet, as is his romance with Jessica Harper, and Peter O'Toole is touching as Alan Swann (Errol Flynn). Sometimes I think Robin Hood: Men in Tights might be worth watching because of this connection to Brooks' youth, but then I think probably not, based on the reviews that I read when it came out.

Blücher is a common German name. No special significance and it *doesn't* mean "glue" as is widely believed. Glue in German is der Klebstoff or der Leim, neither of which remotely sounds like Blücher. It's also not Yiddish for glue, which is kley. It's meant to be a take-off on the melodramatic film device of inserting an ominous organ riff or clap of thunder and having actors react with visible fright whenever the villain appears on-screen or a character refers to something evil or threatening. It's "funny" because it happens whenever *anyone* mentions her name whether or not horses are around. It *doesn't* happen if she appears, even to the horses, without her name being said.

In a interview, Wilder had this to say about the name:

Watched a lot of good - almost-all new - films this year. Highlights include:

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
The Exterminating Angel
Simon of the Desert
In the Realm of the Senses
Il Sorpasso
Juliet of the Spirits
The Rules of the Game
Harakiri
The Player
Le Grand Amour
Zatoichi 1
8 1/2
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
The Hidden Fortress
Corridor of Blood
The Haunted Strangler

Top three is tough, but top five would probably Harakiri, Le Grand Amour, Ali, Juliet of the Spirits and 8 1/2.

And Zatoichi. And The Exterminating Angel...

I liked it quite a bit, hokey makeup aside. For all the 1930s musicals I've watched, the horror of the era is a bit of a void for me. I've been trying to catch up on the Universal monster classics, at least.

I still like The Graduate, but I can see how people wouldn't.

I agree that Young Frankenstein is great, and that his broad humor is hit and miss for me. The Producers is good, but can be a little much. I do like The Twelve Chairs, and Silent Movie has some funny stuff. I'll probably dig into more next month.

The Twelve Chairs is very underrated.

The new streaming service is going to be $10.99 but there's also a free two week trial. Unlike Hulu, they'll have extras like the commentary from Silence of the Lambs

http://www.filmstruck.com/?utm_sourc...ent=newsletter

Moreover, the BASIC (rotating) FilmStruck os only $6.99. It's the "permanent" Criterion bit that's $10.99. Or $99.99 for a uear.

I'm curious about whether the basic service will still have extras..

I was kinda figuring the price for FilmStruck with the Criterion channel would be $18-$20 so I was very pleasantly surprised with the $10.99/month and especially the $99.99/year price. I still have a large backlog of Criterion discs to watch, but I will subscribe.

With over 600 Criterions, at least half unopened, I couldn't live with myself if I subscribed, even if it was $1.

Check out: THE INVISIBLE MAN, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1932), FREAKS, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, MAD LOVE, THE MASK OF FU MANCHU.

iTunes has 100 Criterion titles on sale for $9.99 apiece right now!

$9.99: Bestsellers
$9.99: Essentials
$9.99: Zatoichi - The Blind Swordsman
$9.99: More to Explore