Following the announcement of a sequel to Spaceballs, we assess the film-maker’s funniest movies, from the Hitchcock spoof High Anxiety to the impeccable Young Frankenstein
“It’s good to be the king.” Brooks mixes sight gags, dad jokes and Borscht Belt standup in historical vignettes from the stone age to the French Revolution. Results are hit and miss, and the ancient Rome segment goes on for ever, but the tasteless Torquemada musical number is a scream.
In the USSR, circa 1927, an ex-aristocrat, a conman and a priest search for a missing chair stuffed with jewels. Brooks’s second film, adapted from a popular Russian novel, feels ponderous compared to the rest of his work, despite shameless hamming from Ron Moody, Dom DeLuise and Brooks himself. Frank Langella, alas, is miscast in his first film role.
The Kevin Costner school of English heroism gets the Brooks treatment with Cary Elwes as Robin Hood, Dave Chappelle making his film debut as the outlaw’s sidekick, and a perplexing detour into The Godfather territory featuring DeLuise stroking a lizard. The laughs come fast, cheap and silly, but some of them hit the bullseye.
Brooks plays the leading role in a Trading Places-adjacent morality tale of a billionaire who accepts a bet that he can survive on the Los Angeles streets for a month. This comedy about homelessness bombed, but has a winning integrity and some decent gags, such as Brooks responding to his cardboard shelter getting washed away with: “There goes the neighbourhood.”
