Silent Movie
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| Silent Movie | |
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| Directed by | Mel Brooks |
| Produced by | Michael Hertzberg |
| Written by | Mel Brooks Ron Clark Rudy De Luca Barry Levinson |
| Starring | Mel Brooks Marty Feldman Dom DeLuise Bernadette Peters Sid Caesar |
| Music by | John Morris |
| Cinematography | Paul Lohmann |
| Editing by | Stanford C. Allen Andrew Horvitch John C. Howard |
| Release date(s) |  June 17, 1976 |
| Running time | 86 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | Silent (Only word of dialouge spoken in French) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
- This article is about the comedy film. For voiceless films, see Silent film.
Silent Movie is a 1976 comedy film directed by and starring Mel Brooks. The ensemble cast includes Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, Sid Caesar, Anne Bancroft, Henry Youngman, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, and Paul Newman.
As its title suggests, the film is a parody of the silent film genre, particularly the slapstick comedies of Hal Roach, Mack Sennett and Buster Keaton. Among the film's many jokes is the fact that the only audible line in the movie is spoken by Marcel Marceau, the famous mime. Sound is also used for a scene that shows New York City and the score begins to play "San Francisco", only to have it come to a sudden stop as if the orchestra realizes they are playing the wrong music. They then go into "I'll Take Manhattan" instead.
A play on the 1970s trend of large corporations buying up smaller companies is parodied in this film by the attempt of the Engulf and Devour Corporation to take control of a studio (a thinly veiled reference to Gulf+Western's takeover of Paramount Pictures).
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[edit] Plot
Mel Funn's (Brooks) filmmaking trio, consisting of himself, Marty Eggs (Feldman) and Dom Bell (DeLuise), set out to pitch Funn's new screenplay to the chief (Caesar) of Big Picture Studios. The screenplay is for the first major silent motion picture in forty years. At first the studio chief rejects the idea because the studio is not very successful, and he doesn't trust Funn's judgement based on his previous drinking problem, but Funn convinces him that if he can get all of Hollywood's biggest stars to be in the film that he could save the studio.
Funn, Eggs, and Bell proceed to recruit Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, and Paul Newman (all played by themselves) to be in their silent film. They ask Marcel Marceau (also as himself) to be in the film and he replies, "Non," the only spoken line (or word if you'd rather) in the film. Funn claims not to understand Marceau's reply because he "doesn't speak French."
Meanwhile, Engulf (Harold Gould) and Devour (Ron Carey) of Engulf & Devour Studios worry that Funn will save Big Picture Studios, and they will be unable to buy it out. They attempt to "stop Funn with sex," by sending Vilma Kaplan (Peters) to seduce, and then pretend to fall in love with Mel Funn. Funn realizes the truth the day before the filming of the movie is set to begin, and returns to drinking. Little did he know that Vilma really had fallen in love with him.
Vilma, Eggs, and Bell convince Funn to stop drinking and have several hundred cups of coffee. The movie is filmed on schedule, but is stolen from the theater by Engulf & Devour just before its preview. Funn and his associates steal it back and, after a slapstick car chase and final "showdown," return the film to the theater, where it becomes a big hit. Funn, Eggs, and Bell succeed in saving Big Picture Studios.
[edit] Gags
The following slapstick gags take place in the movie:
- At the beginning of the movie, Mel, Dom, and Marty give a pregnant woman (Carol Arthur DeLuise) a lift to the hospital, and her weight causes the car to make the entire trip on its two rear wheels.
- Just before going to see the Studio Chief, Mel and his friends cross their fingers for good luck, and Mel can't uncross his. Later, he shakes hands with the Chief, and the Chief's fingers are crossed instead of Mel's as a result; the Chief then "passes" this crossed condition to his secretary's fingers the same way.
- Right after the Studio Chief tells Mel that "slapstick is dead," the Chief falls backward in his chair onto the floor, and the force of this causes him and the chair to be hurled forward through the front of his desk and across the office.
- When Mel gets a bright idea in the Chief's office, a lamp bulb that's behind and above his head comes on.
- In one scene, the Studio Chief and the moviemaking trio watch a scene from a low-budget picture called The Queen's Rifles: Three rows of British troops are being ordered to fire their rifles. First the front row fires; then the second row fires, shooting the first row in their backs; and then the last row fires, shooting the second row in their backs. Trying to find something positive to say, Mel says, "I like the last row best."
- While Dom uses a public restroom, two men — one blind, one sighted — each ask Marty to look after his dog while they use the facilities. After they come out, they each accidentally take the other's dog; because of this, the guide dog won't let the sighted man cross a street, and the non-guide dog takes off, dragging the blind man behind it.
- In order to approach Liza Minelli so they can ask her to be in their movie, Mel, Dom, and Marty disguise themselves in suits of armor and go into the studio commissary where she's eating. Unaccustomed to such cumbersome outfits, the trio stumble and trip repeatedly, destroying tables and chairs in the process.
- In the theater where the preview of the movie is going to take place, two people go to the snack counter and get a trash can loaded with popcorn (the front of which reads "Popcorn — Trash Can Size"). Butter is poured into it with what appears to be a gasoline pump. Astounded by the sight of this, Mel turns to Dom — who's eating a Hershey bar the size of a door.
- During the car chase, one of the vehicles causes an exterminator's van to run off the road; this causes the giant prop fly to be hurled from the roof of the van and land on a customer's table at a sidewalk café. The diner, played by Henny Youngman, then shouts the famous line, "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!"
- In two scenes, two women appear and call Bell, Eggs, and Funn fags where in the first scene, they are scene hugging each other for luck but over do it. The second scene features James Caan. Dom sneezes, making the trailer (which James Caan says has broken shocks) lean over to Caan's side and all three of them end up on top of James Caan, the door opens, and the two ladies come in.
- Many gags were seen when the characters spoke. In one scene, Dom doubts Mel's idea about a silent movie, and it shows that Mel shouts "That's crazy!" with more furious comments, but the screen says "Maybe you're right.".
- Burt Reynolds, one of the stars in the movie, has the scenes that uses a lot of gags. The trio keep bugging Burt to join their movie using tactics such as Dom sticking his foot into the door when Burt closes it, causing his foot to be partially flat, as seen in many cartoons involving foot-squishing; sneeking into his shower; and lastly, they use the "tallest man" as a trick and end up giving the street-sweeper driver a heart attack or most likely, faint after the street-sweeper runs over the part the coat which was empty.
[edit] Trivia
- The yellow roadster driven by Funn, Eggs and Bell is a Morgan four-seater. Specific model or year of manufacture is unknown.
[edit] External link
| Films Directed by Mel Brooks |
| The Producers | The Twelve Chairs | Young Frankenstein | Blazing Saddles | Silent Movie | High Anxiety History of the World, Part I | Spaceballs | Life Stinks | Robin Hood: Men in Tights | Dracula: Dead and Loving It |
