I'm rather excited in a geeky sort of way this week. One of my heroes is celebrating a landmark birthday. You know you want to say and even sing some of these with me:
"It's good to be the king."
"What's the matter, Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?"
"We're men. We're men in tights--TIGHT tights!"
"It's twue... it's twue, it's twue!"
"Don't be stupid, be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi Party."
"If you're blue and you don't know where to go to why don't you go where fashion sits... (snap fingers twice and insert incoherent bellowing here)."
"Non!" (spoken by Marcel Marceau)
Writer, director, actor, EGOT winner, World War II veteran, and cultured, sophisticated man about town Mel Brooks turns 100 this Sunday. As someone who tends to gravitate toward movies that make me laugh, his films have probably meant more to me over the years than just about any other filmmaker. I've been a fan most of my life. When I'm down or sick, watching one of his movies always makes me feel better.
Having grown up during the golden age of Hollywood, Brooks has an appreciation for all different genres of film. Most of his movies are parodies or spoofs of other movies or specific genres, and virtually every one features a musical number of some sort--usually written or co-written by Brooks himself--regardless of whether or not the film is actually a musical.
Aside from making me laugh hysterically, even with repeated viewings, watching one of Mel's films (and even though I've never met him, I do feel like I'm on a first-name basis with the man), makes me want to watch other films that aren't his. Because his films are typically spoofs, when I watch one, I want to view the movie or movies that inspired it. For example, when I watch Young Frankenstein every October, I also feel compelled to watch the original 1931 Frankenstein as well as its 1935 sequel The Bride of Frankenstein.
In honour of his pending centennial, I felt compelled to watch one of his movies the other night that I don't watch as often. It's different from his other films in that it's not a parody of something else, but rather based on a Russian novel. It was only his second movie, after the original version of The Producers which won him the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It wasn't a huge hit when it was released in 1970--Brooks joked that The Producers made a penny, while this film made half a penny. But with the development of home video, new generations have come to not just view, but appreciate this underappreciated movie.
Set in 1927 in the relatively recently developed Soviet Union, a dying woman tells her son in law, Vorobyaninov (played by Ron Moody), a former Russian aristocrat, that during the revolution she hid her jewels inside the seat of a chair that was part of a set of twelve. Moments before telling him, she also told the local priest, Father Fyodor (an almost unrecognizable Dom DeLuise). On a return trip to his former stately home, Vorobyaninov teams up with Ostap Bender, a con artist (Frank Langella in what IMDB says was his film debut) and is reunited with his former servant Tikon (Brooks in what I think is the finest acting he ever did). Together, they try to stay ahead of Fyodor and hopefully find the jewels first in what becomes a madcap chase across the country.
Brooks shot the movie in what was then Yugoslavia and wrote the screenplay based on the novel Dvenadstat Stulyev by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov and translated by Elizabeth Hill under the title Diamonds To Sit On. In honour of Mel Brooks's 100th birthday, please enjoy what Brooks has said is his favourite of his own movies, The Twelve Chairs. Thanks, Mel, for all the laughs. Keep 'em coming. Looking forward to Spaceballs: The New One next year.
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember... be good to your parents. They've been good to you.
Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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