The serious comedy found a few boosters. Judith Crist (of NBC-TV) weighed in with: “The Twelve Chairs is a complete joy! A comedy to warm the heart and leave the ribs aching.” Playboy magazine judged that the movie “obeys no rules except those governing the lost art of pure comedy … cast of superlative clowns, led by Ron Moody, the memorable Fagin of Oliver!” Many critics suggested that Mel’s supporting performance was the real highlight of the picture—and in many ways it was. Sadly, his character appeared only briefly in the film.
The reaction of Pauline Kael (of the New Yorker) to The Twelve Chairs was, “It’s a bit forlorn, this attempt to make comedy out of old comedy that has lost its satirical bite.” Variety predicted that the new release had “doubtful mass appeal.” The trade paper’s prediction proved correct. The Twelve Chairs came and went rather quickly in distribution, leaving no trail of box-office profits.
The overall failure of Brooks’s second picture was especially bitter for Mel, who had put so much of his heart and soul into the literate project. (In years to come, Brooks rated The Twelve Chairs, The Producers, and Life Stinks as “the films I’m most proud of.”) He explained his strong attachment to this 1970 release: “When I wrote The Producers it was really a private story with universal features. Then I wrote The Twelve Chairs, and it was very private. You had to know about the Russian sensibility, from the muzhik to the czar, to appreciate The Twelve Chairs, even though the human aspects were once again universal. Both pictures deal with love and greed, but The Producers got a cult audience ... and The Twelve Chairs got an even smaller one. So if you were a Jewish intellectual whose parents had emigrated from Russia you could like my pictures, but there were hardly any of those in Amarillo, Texas, where you gotta play in one of their three or four theaters or else you’re outa luck.… You gotta get into one of the John Wayne houses or you ain’t never gonna break out and they ain’t gonna play you in a John Wayne house if you’re gonna do private ethnic stories, even though they do have ubiquitous human parallels.”
Over time, as the deep wounds to his pride slowly healed to some degree, he gained perspective from these two box-office misfires. “I was so fed up with my movies and my failure. I thought I had given the best of me, brilliantly, beautifully delivered, what I was exactly, the human being that I was… the Jew that I am, in both pictures, and they were not, to my mind, well received. I realized later why—because they were too private. What do Americans know about a coupla Jews on Broadway? What do they know about Russia?”
Now much less idealistic about his cinematic vision for future projects, Brooks vowed that if he ever gained the opportunity to make another film, it would be far more mainstream in subject matter. Equally important, he decided that, if at all possible, he would avoid the ego-satisfying temptation of writing any future screenplays alone. Thinking back to his salad days on Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour, Mel appreciated anew the overall value of being able to test all his creative ideas with script collaborators, who could, hopefully, keep him and his developing screenplay on a better commercial course. In making this essential decision that played such a strong role in his future, Brooks reasoned, “I didn’t want to go back to the tables and risk another gambling session with my career.”
24
Back in the Running—Again
Nothing good comes out of going for the money. If you do something lovely from your heart, you might get lucky and make some money. But if it doesn’t come from your heart and soul, if you don’t believe in it from your fingertips to the tips of your toes, it’s not going to be good. You’ve got to do it because you love it.
–Mel Brooks, 2004
While Mel Brooks was filming The Twelve Chairs abroad and then editing his feature back in the United States, Anne Bancroft was preparing for a new television project. It was an hour-long special for CBS-TV, set to air on February 18, 1970. The program was titled Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man, and explored the many emotional facets of the contemporary female. It was directed by Martin Charnin and boasted the services of nine writers, including Gary Belkin, Herbert Sargent, Jacqueline Susann, Thomas Meehan, and Brooks. Jack Gould of the New York Times rated the sophisticated offering “a tour de force of such a multiplicity of charms, humor and talent that it is almost hard to believe.” As for its star (Bancroft), the critic judged, “Rightfully, she should be the toast of the country by tomorrow morning.” (Brooks was referred to in the Times’s critique as “Mel Brooks, the husband of Miss Bancroft.”) The special went on to win two Emmy Awards: Outstanding Variety or Musical Program and Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy, Variety or Music. Out of that TV pickup assignment Brooks became friendly with Thomas Meehan, and later the two writers would collaborate on several films (including Spaceballs) and stage projects (such as The Producers).
• • •
With his professional future largely in limbo, Brooks found himself faced with more than ample free time to indulge two of his major hobbies. To fill his many empty hours, he browsed through New York City bookstores in search of volumes of classical literature (especially Russian) to add to his growing library. Whenever he happened upon a knowledgeable salesclerk in these shops, he stopped to have a long conversation with him or her, eager to share his growing knowledge of good books. Often, he would return to such stores, hoping to engage the same bright clerks in further literary discussions.
Another interest of Mel’s (the former drummer) was expanding his collection of recordings. One day, Brooks had an encounter with a young customer at a basement shop on West 8th Street. Years later, the college student could still recall the incident vividly. “A short man appeared in the doorway above me, jacket thrown over his shoulders like a cape.… In a loud theatrical voice, he called out to the manager, asking if his records had come in. When he heard that they hadn’t, he was about to leave, when he looked down, noticed scripts under my arm and asked if I was an actor. I told him I was only a student and he said: ‘Would you like a quick lesson? I’ll show you 10 ways to smoke a cigarette—give me one.’
“He then proceeded to act out a series of freeze frames that would have done justice to the most emotive of silent film stars. He announced ‘anger’ and proceeded to puff away, smoke billowing, eyes glaring, jaw tensed, fists gripped, and body poised to fight.… He went on to fear, love, sadness, lust, embarrassment, etc. and in much too short a time was finished. He wished me luck as an actor and with a flourish, Mel Brooks turned and made his exit.”
• • •
In the midst of Mel’s latest career stall, there was a joyful personal event. On May 22, 1972, the Brookses became parents of a baby boy, who was baptized Maximilian Michael Brooks in honor of each parent’s father. Although neither Brooks nor Bancroft was especially religious, it was important to Anne to have her infant undergo a ritual celebrating his birth. The couple agreed that if Mel permitted Max to be baptized, then Anne would go along with the youngster being bar mitzvahed when he turned 13.
Bancroft said of becoming a mother, “We tried and tried and suddenly had Max when I was 41, the last possible moment. We should have called him ‘Nick’ for ‘in the nick of time.’ I was at the peak of my career and my looks, but I pulled back. Wanted to be with him. One of the perks of show business, a reason we go into it, is we don’t have to work every day—especially women. When you become a wife there are certain demands put on you. Work is important for a man’s identity. It’s not that important to women. They have a choice.” Later, in describing her parental responsibilities, she said, “During the time of Maximilian’s growing up, I did about one project a year. Before he went to school, he came with me wherever I went. Once he went to school, then I really had to cut it down to be available. You have to make those kinds of compromises. But that’s who I am. Other people might not have to make those deals.”
As for Brooks, now a father of four and already in his mid-40s, his elation at Max’s birth must have been tempered by many pressing concerns. He had to
be speculating how he could best be there for his newborn child while not overlooking the three children from his first marriage. Then too, this new addition to the household must have caused Mel great worries of how he was going to properly support his expanded family.
• • •
Just when everything seemed so bleak in Mel’s career, along came Brooks’s fortuitous 1973 encounter with the powerful talent agent David Begelman. Miraculously, the latter soon engineered an offer for Brooks to write and direct Blazing Saddles. The film’s tremendous box-office reception not only thrust Mel back into prominence, but made the zany man far more of a household name than he had been, for example, when his 2000 Year Old Man albums were such a craze in the 1960s. By all standards, Mel had made a monumental professional comeback—one that brought him industry admiration and public adulation.
With his regained prominence, Mel found himself called upon by reporters to analyze the special appeal of his loony, trailblazing film. Brooks emphasized, “Cliches are just the ornaments. The tree has to be solid. The movie has got to be about something. Take Blazing Saddles. It was about whether a black could survive in the good old West. It may seem like a silly picture but, to me, it had a strong underpinning because it was really about love.” He reasoned further, “But most audiences only remember the ornaments of a comedy—the jokes. They don’t see the tree. It’s dark. It’s all bark. But what would all the ornaments be without the tree for support? They’d just be a pile of shiny baubles on the ground.”
Thrilled by the enormous success of his latest picture, Brooks predicted, “I think in ten years, and I’m tooting my own horn now, Blazing Saddles will be recognized as the funniest film ever made. Just funny—I’m not talking about other faults or virtues, I’m just talking about the amount of laughter evoked. I think it’s funnier than other movies, even Mae West and W. C. Fields, or Buster Keaton or the Marx Brothers, all of whom I love. The only thing that might compete with it for the amount of laughter are the Three Stooges shorts.” It led him to ask rhetorically, “Should I be happy that I’ve spawned such insanity? Yes, I’m very proud and very ashamed at the same time.” In his estimation, “Blazing Saddles allowed me to be the lovely Rabelaisian vulgarian that I am. I mean those cowboys farting around the campfire allowed me for the first time to really exercise my scatological muscles.”
At the time, Brooks had no way of forecasting that his wild and wacky feature would have its greatest impact on the next generations of filmmakers, who set about pushing the envelope even further throughout mainstream cinema. These would include such moviemakers as Terry Gilliam (in Monty Python and the Holy Grail), David Zucker, Jim Abraham, Jerry Zucker (of Airplane! fame), and the Farrelly brothers (with There’s Something About Mary) and actor Jim Carrey (with his lowbrow comedy in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective).
• • •
Now that Brooks was riding so high in Hollywood, the industry watched with keen interest to see what the unorthodox Mel would do as a follow-up to the oddball success of Blazing Saddles.
25
A Monster Hit
It’s very hard to break through in our business, because the public is murderous. They’re envious and contemptuous of anybody who would stick their neck out. So very few people get through that skein of public ferocity. Most people think you don’t make it because of apathy. It’s not [the case].
—Mel Brooks, 1974
On one hand, Mel Brooks was jubilant that the megasuccess of Blazing Saddles allowed him to be taken seriously by the Hollywood establishment, which respected anyone who could create such a substantial box-office hit. On the other hand, the veteran talent still yearned to be taken seriously by film reviewers and the moviegoing public.
As to being called zany, Brooks argued, “It’s a convenient pigeonhole for lazy minds. If they [i.e., the critics] really knew my work, you could not say zany Mel Brooks and seriously discuss The Twelve Chairs, The Critic, or certain aspects of the early Show of Shows, when tragedy and comedy met so beautifully. I object to it because I think you could call Picasso zany because he’s not a naturalistic painter, or dull. Or you could call Dalí zany. But they’re great artists and we’ve got to learn that abstract comedy or surrealistic comedy is not necessarily cheap.”
Mel emphasized, “You start with a vision, and you just want it to come out that way. You do everything in your power short of a criminal act to make sure it comes out that way. You’re the only one who has the vision. All these scenes, these tiles in the grand mosaic of your brain, you’re the only one who has the whole vision. I suspect that’s the trouble with a lot of films, that they’re not writer-director made. They’re director-made. And that the writer is the only one that has the true vision.” Now that Brooks had the comforting reassurance of having turned out such a significant box-office hit, his self-confidence was restored—and then some. In this mode, he enthusiastically expounded to the press on the impetus behind his expanding activities in the filmmaking process: “I think I enjoy writing the most, because that’s really the genesis. The explosion of a new idea in your brain is really the happiest moment. Directing is good, too, because you can mold and shape and sculpt. Acting is good, because it cuts out another middleman; it cuts out an actor who may not do it as well as you can, who may not understand it and get the nuances. I am very happy to be doing what I’m doing because a lot of people just work for wages. If the money wasn’t good, I’d still be doing it. If they’d let me do it I’d still do it. I mean, essentially, it’s just showing off.”
• • •
Even before Blazing Saddles was released, in February 1974, Mel Brooks found himself working on a new Hollywood screen project. It stemmed from the fertile imagination of Gene Wilder. Perhaps inspired by Mel’s ability to be a screenwriter, director, and actor, Gene had aspirations of one day following in that same career path. For now, however, Wilder focused on being a performer—and a very much in demand one at that. Back on the East Coast—before he became involved with Blazing Saddles— Gene had had an idea of adapting Mary Wollstonecraft: Shelley’s Gothic horror novel, Frankenstein, for the screen. Wilder recalled his creative process: “I took a yellow legal pad and a blue felt pen and I wrote Young Frankenstein on top.… And then for two pages, I thought what could happen to me if I suddenly found out that I was an heir to Beaufort von Frankenstein’s whole estate in Transylvania. And I finished the two pages. I called Mel [Brooks]. I told him, Well, he says cute. Cute. That’s all he said.”
Later in the summer of 1972, Mike Medavoy, then Wilder’s talent agent, asked Gene if he might have any ideas in mind that would be suitable for teaming Gene on camera with two new Medavoy clients. The personalities in question were Peter Boyle (a stocky character actor best known for such films as Joe and The Candidate) and Marty Feldman (a British performer—mainly in TV series—who had unusually angular features and bulging eyes, which often darted about wildly and out of sync with each other. It occurred to Wilder that he could incorporate roles for both Boyle and Feldman into his Young Frankenstein property.
Over the coming months, Gene, the film writing novice, wrote snatches of his screen treatment (and screenplay drafts) in between movie assignments—one of them being Blazing Saddles. Meanwhile, Medavoy showed Wilder’s treatment to Michael Gruskoff, who had produced two films (The Last Movie and Silent Running) and was looking for a new venture. Gruskoff liked the Young Frankenstein concept and the package of Wilder-Boyle-Feldman. He suggested that adding Mel Brooks to the deal would make it an easier sale. Mel was just then finishing principal photography on Blazing Saddles and was again reluctant to work on a film that was not based on his own material. Eventually, it was agreed that Brooks and Wilder would work together on a new (fourth) draft of Gene’s screenplay and that, if the property should sell, Mel would direct the picture.
While Brooks was engaged in postproduction activities on Blazing Saddles, he and Wilder met during evenings at the Bel Air Hotel (where Gene was staying) to reshape the You
ng Frankenstein script. Whatever the difference of personalities between the two men, and their varying viewpoints on this joint effort, the pair worked relatively fast and harmoniously on the screenwriting collaboration. (One of their few creative disagreements occurred when Gene insisted there must be a sequence within the film in which young Dr. Frankenstein reveals his creation to the public and the monster is dressed for the occasion in formal attire. This leads to the creature and his creator launching into song and dance to Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Brooks thought this vaudeville-style number would be too frivolous and out of context within the rest of the story line. However, the usually meek Gene stood firm on this point and Mel acceded to his partner’s wishes. The odd sequence proved to be one of the most memorable scenes in the entire picture.)
Brooks said of the teamwork with Wilder, “We really had fun, we were like a couple of kids. When I’m writing a script, I don’t worry about plot as much as I do about people. I get to know the main characters—what they need, what they want, what they should do. That’s what gets the story going. Like a child, I listen to the characters.… You can’t just have actions, you’ve got to find out what the characters want. And then they must grow, they must go somewhere.”
Later, Wilder acknowledged that in the long run, working with Brooks on this feature film had been tremendously beneficial to his own career growth. “Mel has all kinds of faults. Like his greed, his megalomania, his need to be the universal father and teacher, even to people far more experienced than he is. Why I’m close to him is not in spite of those faults but because of them. I need a leader, someone to tell me what to do. If he were more humble, modest, and considerate, he would probably have more friends, but I doubt whether he and I would be such good friends. He made me discover the me in Mel. He taught me never to be afraid of offending. It’s when you worry about offending people that you get in trouble.”
It's Good to Be the King Page 22
