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(Melvin James Kaminsky 1926– ). American writer, director, actor, and producer.
Wrote, directed, produced, and acted in: High Anxiety (co-wrote
with Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, and Barry Levinson) (1977); Spaceballs (co-wrote
with Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan) (1987); Dracula: Dead and Loving It
(co-wrote with Rudy De Luca and Steve Haberman).
Produced: The Doctor and the Devils (Freddie FRANCIS 1985); Solarbabies
(Alan Johnson 1986); The Vagrant (Chris Walas 1992); Spaceballs: The
Animated Series (2008-2009).
Created: Get Smart (with Buck Henry) (tv series) (1965-1970); Spaceballs:
The Animated Series (2008-2009).
Wrote: "Archy and Mehitabel" (1960), episode of Play of the Week;
The 2000 Year Old Man (with Carl Reiner) (animated tv movie) (Leo Salkin
1975).
Acted in: The Muppet Movie (James Frawley 1979).
Provided voice: The Electric Company (tv series) (1971-1977); Look
Who's Talking Too (Amy Heckerling 1990); The Prince of Egypt (animated
film) (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells 1998); It's a Very
Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (tv movie) (Kirk R. Thatcher 2002); "Holly
Jolly Jimmy" (2003), episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius;
Jakers!: The Adventures of Piggley Winks (animated series) (2003-2006); Robots
(animated film) (Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha 2005); "A Very Martin
Christmas" (2010), episode of Glenn Martin DDS; "On Old McDonald's
Special Song/Snapfingers" (2011), episode of Special Agent Oso.
Although Brooks
had never evidenced any particular devotion to the genre, his first prominent
appearances had a science-fictional premise: his "2000 Year Old Man" sketches
on The Steve Allen Show, which featured Carl Reiner interviewing the
very long-lived Brooks in dialogue that was purportedly improvised. As the
story goes, Reiner and Brooks met at a party and, after Brooks said that gout
surgery had made him feel like "a 2000 year old man," Reiner started asking him
questions about living that long and Brooks came up with funny answers, leading
to an invitation to do the same routine on television. Later immortalized in
five record albums and a 1975 animated film, these dialogues were not
outstandingly funny, though Brooks did bring to the part the irascible energy
that he would later display in his own films.
After his
screenplay for the outrageous The Producers (1968) won Brooks an Academy
Award, he was able to start writing, directing, and starring in his own films,
and all of these might be regarded as science fiction, since they invariably
contort themselves in some surrealistic fashion to get that all-important
laugh. This is particularly prominent in his first major success, Blazing
Saddles, wherein the cowboys ultimately escape from their Hollywood set and
ride out into contemporary Los Angeles. This remains his best film, unusually
assured in its skewering of western clichés and hence not as annoying as some
later efforts. His next film was much closer to the genre, Young
Frankenstein, that affectionate tribute to James
WHALE's Frankenstein movies that was not the
classic that everybody wanted it to be, primarily because it was neither
particularly amusing nor particularly poignant, and its generally subdued tone
made the over-the-top antics of Cloris Leachman and others irksomely
incongruous. Although Peter
BOYLE's Frankenstein monster makes this the
only Brooks film that includes a memorable performance, his later, failed
effort to turn the film into a successful Broadway musical should have come as
no surprise.
With two hit
films in his résumé, Brooks proceeded to destroy his career with a series of
increasingly awful films that, for the most part, thankfully do not demand the
attention of this encyclopedia, although High Anxiety proved a
stunningly superficial parody of Alfred
HITCHCOCK that never really addressed any of the
qualities that made that director's films uniquely memorable. Further weakening
these films was Brooks's increasing tendency to cast himself in leading roles,
inspiring him to work much too hard to be funny and demonstrating that he was
not an enormously talented comic actor.
In the 1980s,
struggling to get audiences back in the theatres to watch his films again,
Brooks resolved to parody George
LUCAS's very popular Star Wars films,
and in some respects did so unexpectedly well: the opening scene of the
enormous spaceship that never ends, for example, perfectly punctuated Lucas's
efforts to imbue his films with a kitsch sense of awe. Also, despite the
relentless silliness, the film also strived to respect its own story, and by
dropping his stock company of irritating overachievers and again retreating to
the background, Brooks also enjoyed the advantage of an unusually strong cast.
Achieving its own sort of dorky charm, Spaceballs is, if not a movie one
admires, a movie one surrenders to. Unfortunately, this was not the harbinger
of triumphs to come, since Brooks then came up with the misconceived Life
Stinks (1991) and two more dreary parodies, Robin Hood: Men in Tights
(1993) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It; the latter film, with Leslie
NIELSEN as Dracula, actually begins pretty well but sinks very fast.
Retiring as a
film director as he reached the age of seventy, Brooks has since kept himself
busy in two areas. First, as a Broadway producer, he reaped tremendous rewards
from a musical version of The Producers that later became a film (though
predictably, there are no similar plans for his second musical, Young
Frankenstein). Second, he has been regularly employed as a voice for animated
films, no doubt asked to participate by young admirers of his work, since it is
hard to imagine that he really needs the money. If he will never achieve the
age of 2000 years, he can at least be celebrated as an active contributor to
science fiction films at the age of eighty-seven, now doing a voice for the
upcoming Mr. Peabody and Sherman film, and still a genuine creative
force who might surprise his critics one more time, for better or worse.
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