THE TOWERING INFERNO 1974

"Did you leave a cigarette burning?"

Here in L.A., one of our tallest downtown skyscrapers has an attraction that allows visitors to ride a slide from its 70^th to 69^th floor: an enclosed, apparent glass slide attached to the outside of the building. In other words, one gets to pay for the privilege of crapping one's pants 1,000 feet in the air.

But back in the '70s, those of us in search of less first-hand high-rise thrills were happy to content ourselves with the vicarious thrills of The Towering Inferno: producer Irwin Allen's $14 million follow-up to his wildly successful The Poseidon Adventure (1972). It was 1974, and the disaster film craze was in full swing. October saw the release of Airport '75 ("The stewardess is flying the plane!"); November gave us Earthquake ("In Sensurround!"), and we saw the year out with the big  December Christmas release, The Towering Inferno.

Everything about The Towering Inferno was a one-upmanship of the standard disaster film. It was adapted from not one, but two novels (The Tower by Richard Martin Stern & The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson); it boasted two directors (John Guillermin for the acting, Irwin Allen for the action); and was such a massively expensive undertaking that it brought about the historic collaboration of Warner Bros. and 20^th Century-Fox (successfully circumventing a replay of the "Dueling Harlows" situation of 1965 when competing studios raced to release two films about actress Jean Harlow at the same time). The Towering Inferno was to be Hollywood's heavily-hyped holiday season release, promising to be the ultimate "Big, Bigger, Biggest!" cherry atop the disaster film catastrophe cake.

And, as it turns out, The Towering Inferno—which garnered eight Academy Award nominations and became one of the year's highest-grossing films—did indeed represent the genre at its peak. Its sheer scope, star-wattage, and pull-out-the-stops excesses signifying perhaps the most to which the genre could ever reasonably aspire. Its ambitious scale and overall professional (albeit, old-fashioned) competency standing as something of a bellwether for the genre's eventual decline into oversaturation, mediocrity, and unintentional self-parody.

"It's out of control and it's coming your way!"

Truer words were never spoken. On the evening of the gala dedication ceremony for The Glass Tower—San Francisco's newest skyscraper and the tallest building in the world—an electrical fire breaks out in a utility room (Building developer: "You're not familiar with the many modern safety systems we have designed into this building"); faster than you can say "Titanic," all hell breaks loose…literally. To quote the film's ad copy, "One tiny spark becomes a night of blazing suspense" as 300 well-heeled revelers in highly flammable '70s synthetics become trapped on the building's top floor with nothing but Maureen McGovern for entertainment, and ever-diminishing options available for escape. 

What to do? What to do?

Panic at the Disco

Well, what The Towering Inferno does (and very well, thank you) is to let this open-flame potboiler play out in a manner not dissimilar to that of an old Busby Berkeley musical. The tried-and-true pattern for those films was to introduce the players, hastily establish their superficial-to-inconsequential interrelationships and conflicts, then spend the rest of the movie interspersing the formulaic narrative complications and resolutions between musical numbers of intensifying extravagance and excess. A little plot, a musical number...a little more plot, a slightly bigger musical number, etc.; …all leading to a big, splashy finale featuring multitudes of Goldwyn Girls until, finally, all ends well with a romantic clinch at fade-out.

The Towering Inferno follows this pattern pretty closely…only with explosions, falls from great heights, and gruesome, fiery deaths taking the place of musical production numbers. The result is a disaster film clocking in at over 2 ½ hours that, while occasionally getting bogged down in technical dialogue and repetition (eliminate all the footage of firefighters climbing stairs, and this movie would be about 60 minutes), moves at a surprisingly brisk and exciting pace.

Since the title already clues us in that the building is going to go up like a matchstick, the film doesn't waste any time trying to build false suspense by pretending to be about anything else. We're introduced to the setting, The Glass Tower: a near-literal imposing erection jutting phallically from the testicular San Francisco hills. A building whose façade is shimmering gold and whose interior is an eye-strain symphony of '70s game-show orange. Residents occupy the floors above the 81^st, and lower floors are devoted to commercial tenants (including the building's developer, Duncan Enterprises—they of the Starship Enterprise interior design and bedroom-equipped executive offices). With the "where" established, The Towering Inferno moves on to introducing the "who" by means of cinema shorthand: aka clichés.

Paul Newman as Doug Roberts - "The Architect"

First, we get the hero architect (Newman). We know he's the hero because while everyone else wears suits and ties, he's the lone maverick in orange and suede. Cut from the same iconoclastic mold as those confrontational individualists in the Winston cigarette ads of the day ("I don't smoke to be like everybody else" was typical ad copy), Newman and his trademark squint plays a sun-bronzed Thoreau ready to say goodbye to his lucrative corporate career so he can live the simple life in Mendocino County so he can "Sleep like a winner."

Faye Dunaway as Susan Franklin, "The Girlfriend"

The curvaceous speedbump preventing Newman from beating as hasty a retreat to the good life is magazine editor Faye Dunaway. The movie poster identifies her as "the girlfriend," and that's precisely the breadth, scope, and function of her role in the film. Randy Paul Newman wants to runaway with Dunaway to a place where their hypothetical children "…can run around and grow and be free." But post-afternoon delight, the career-minded Dunaway informs him that she's just been offered a much longed-for promotion ("That's nice…," is his invalidating response). Newman wants her to be with him (and do what? we ask ourselves), but Dunaway, perhaps anticipating what lies in store for her in Network, is not keen to give her executive promotion the kiss-off so soon. Guess which one of the two isn't placed in the position of having to make a decision?

William Holden as James Duncan "The Builder"

The tempter to Newman's antagonist is boss William Holden. He tries to persuade Newman to stay so that together they can build bigger and better firetraps—I mean, skyscrapers…all over the world. But Holden is a man of questionable integrity with dollar signs in his eyes. Something we can all easily observe for ourselves thanks to his ginormous eyeglasses.

Steve McQueen as Michael O'Hallorhan "The Fire Chief"

Once things start to heat up, good guy fireman Steve McQueen arrives on the scene as the film's moral mentor and finger-wagger. His duty is to deliver a lot of common-sense, life-saving fire safety advice to the audience, scold the corporate bottom-liners, and serve as the occasional big prick to Newman's vulnerable, exposed, quivering conscience.

Richard Chamberlain as Roger Simmons "The Son-In-Law"

The villain of the piece is electrical contractor Richard Chamberlain. The big bad guy tipoff being that within minutes of his introduction, he delivers a Neely O'Hara-ish speech about not needing God or anybody else's help, and how he didn't get through life on a pass because of his good cheekbones and damn classy looks. (Although, in truth, Chamberlain's snare-drum-tight face has been pulled so taut, his exceptional cheekbones genuinely look in danger of cutting straight through the flesh.) Chamberlain's snakish character is written as such an unrelentingly rotten ol' meanie; at any moment, one expects him to materialize in a cape and top hat, twirling a mustache.

Susan Blakely as Patty Simmons "The Wife"

To make him seem even meaner, Chamberlain is given a Good Woman (Susan Blakely); a beautiful but unaccountably loyal spouse given to hurt looks, aqueous glances, and a knack for saying precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time. That she also happens to be the boss's daughter adds a backstory of guile and purpose-fucking to Chamberlain's already slimy resume.

Now, we come to the supporting characters. The ones who exist primarily to drum up additional human interest, boost the potential body count, and attract the ancillary demographics necessary to make a movie this costly into a hit. 

O.J. Simpson as Jernigan "The Murderer"...oops! I mean "The Security Man"

For ethnic appeal and to draw the athletic supporters, there's football player, would-be Hertz pitchman, and future felon O.J. Simpson as the tower's chief of security. On the plus side, at least he's not one of those noble, self-sacrificing, first-to-die Black characters Hollywood holds so dear. On the minus, the man gives a performance of kindling-level woodenness. 

Jennifer Jones as Lisolette Mueller "The Widow"
Fred Astaire as Harlee Claiborne "The Con Man"

For the classic Hollywood fans, we have Golden Years love interests, Fred Astaire and Jennifer Jones as an adorable, twinkly-wrinkly couple. He's a fraud bonds salesman, so Astaire gets to mine the charming chicanery of Airport's Ada Quonset (and, like Helen Hayes in that film, win himself an Oscar nomination in the process). Playing a good-hearted widow with lots of dough, Oscar-winner Jennifer Jones, last seen on movie screens embarrassing herself in the youth-flick exploitationer Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969), gets to mine the selfless sympathy factor of The Poseidon Adventure's Belle Rosen (Shelley Winters). 

Robert Wagner as Dan Bigelow "The Publicity Man"
Susan Flannery as Lorrie "The Secretary"

And what would a disaster film be without a dose of sex=death guilt retribution? Overemployed non-entity Robert Wagner plays an executive who goes to great (read: fatal) pains to conceal the far from earth-shattering fact that he's boffing his secretary (Days of Our Lives star Susan Flannery). The high degree of secrecy these two engage in doesn't make much sense. They turn off their phones, lie to co-workers, and do not tell anyone where they are. Why? Neither appears to be married, it's the sexual revolution '70s, and Wagner's company obliges by outfitting his office with a big ol', tackily decorated bedroom. It would make more sense for this couple to dispense with all the needless extracurricular subterfuge and simply put their sexual overtime on their time cards.

Rounding out The Towering Inferno's parade of potentially soon-to-be-incinerated stars is the equally-innocuous Robert Vaughn (far right) as a senator, and, balancing a tower of her own, Irwin Allen's paramour of 14 years (and soon to be Mrs. Allen) actress Sheila Mathews as the mayor's way-too-many-close-ups-for-the-size-of-her-role wife.

Did I mention there are also children and a cat? Yes, children and animals are as inevitable in disaster movies as Oscar-bait theme songs (this film's "We May Never Love Like This Again" actually hooked the prize). As the ubiquitous pet in need of rescue, we have Elke, the cat. And as what appear to be the only children in the entire building, there's Bobby Brady (Mike Lookinland) and a little girl who has trouble not looking into the camera lens (Carlena Gower). 

As a side note, I have to say I'm personally indebted to that little camera-staring girl. Had Jennifer Jones not been obliged to hoist that tyke around on her hip in take after take for weeks upon end, the late Miss Jones wouldn't have developed the chronic lower back problems that necessitated her seeking out my services as a personal trainer in the '90s. Jones' back ultimately improved, and I got the opportunity to briefly know one of my favorite movie stars. So…thanks, kid!

Once the cast and conflicts are assembled—honorable mention going to the two buddy cops and Carlos, the bartender who never takes a break (Sanford & Sons' Gregory Sierra)—it's just a matter of rolling out the catastrophes and conflagrations. Something The Towering Inferno manages rather spectacularly and as regularly as clockwork.

The bulk of The Towering Inferno is comprised of variations on the following:

1. Hey! There's a fire!

2. Deny, deny, deny.

3. Get those people outta there!

4. No, not that way!
5. Boom!

6. Is it me, or is it really hot in here?

7. Climb, climb, climb!

8. Whoops! There goes the stairwell/elevator/helicopter/breeches buoy.
9. Faye Dunaway consoling terrified guests (i.e., extras) by ensuring their heads are turned well away and not sharing any of her close-ups. 

"There, there...I won't let that nasty old cameraman get at you." 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like." 

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 

Amended: If you like disaster movies, The Towering Inferno is one of the best examples of the genre you're likely to find. Thank you, Miss Brodie.

If asked to pick the disaster movie I get the biggest kick out of, The Poseidon Adventure gets my vote for pure entertainment and camp value—it's like the Valley of the Dolls of disaster films. But when it comes to genuine drama, breathtaking stunts, spectacular effects, and the kind of larger-than-life scale that makes you feel like a kid oohing and ahhing over the sheer magnitude of the undertaking; The Towering Inferno really delivers the goods. 

Seeing it now, it's a good deal talkier, tin-eared, and over-infatuated with the detailed minutiae of firefighting than I remembered, but its clear-cut objective is so simple there's almost a purity to it. It simply wants to be one of the biggest, most exciting, star-studded, thrill-a-minute adventure spectacles ever committed to film. And it succeeds!

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

In the cynical, serious, often dark, frequently downright bizarre atmosphere of New Hollywood '70s cinema, you have no idea what a breath of fresh air these mindless disaster movies were. They were Hollywood at its most formulaic and old-fashioned, and that's precisely what I loved about them. 

Being a San Francisco kid (teen, actually), I was especially excited about the release of The Towering Inferno because news of its production came out about a year after the completion of the controversial Transamerica Pyramid, then, at 48 stories, the tallest building in the city. 

The San Francisco skyline was changing—The Embarcadero also had a 45-story high-rise and more on the way—and there was great concern as to the soundness of so many tall buildings in a city as earthquake-prone as S.F. (I remember a local radio station promoted itself with the slogan "The city that waits to die listens to...." Yikes! That always bothered the hell out of me).

Like many films that achieve success by striking just the right chord of anxiety at the right time, The Towering Inferno had the feel of immediacy about it. A feeling I latched onto and ran with.

I was so taken with this movie I made a point of making sure I'd read BOTH novels before the film came out; I tacked up homemade posters promoting the movie on the bulletin board in my high school's library; I bought every movie magazine that had even the most minor article or photo about it: and when I walked home from school, I always went the route that took me by the movie theater with the advance posters and lobby cards on display.

The Towering Inferno had its West Coast premiere at San Francisco's Alexandria Theater on Thursday, December 19th, and a friend and I desperately wanted to go to gawk from the sidelines (Lights! Music! Stars! Celebrities! Television! Radio!), but that idea was nixed by our parents. We eventually saw The Towering Inferno during its opening weekend and were absolutely floored. Even then, there was no mistaking it for a great film or anything, but it was one of those eye-popping "event" movie experiences I'll never forget. I saw the film at least four times over that Christmas holiday, and for many years after, I kept the souvenir program I'd purchased at the first screening.

PERFORMANCES
When people get prickly over criticism of their favorite disaster movies, a typical defense is that no one goes to these movies to see great acting. Well, that's not altogether true. You may not go expecting Sarah Bernhardt-level emoting, but you do rely on a certain level of competent credibility in the performances to heighten the experience and draw you into the narrative. In the same way that believable stunts and convincing special effects enhance a film's thrill, actors capable of making sketchily drawn characters seem real enough to care about are invaluable assets. If you don't think so, take a look at Irwin Allen's The Swarm sometime.

For my money, Faye Dunaway stands out as the most overqualified for her role, Steve McQueen the most compelling, and Paul Newman is just a pleasure to look at...period. But by and large, I think everyone in the film acquits themselves nicely, with Academy Award-nominated Fred Astaire being a sentimental favorite.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
As big a fan of the genre as I was in the '70s, disaster movies hold a curious place for me now. When I'm not enjoying them purely for their camp and/or nostalgia value, I'm struck by how quickly they went from being entertaining action/adventure films to being these somewhat morbid "body count" spectacles. Latter films in the played-out genre seemed to exist solely to showcase the means, methods, and number of elaborately-staged deaths. 

On a purely personal, subjective note, one of my favorite things about The Towering Inferno is its setting. The tower itself is genuinely impressive, what with all those flames shooting out of it at dazzlingly photogenic angles. And the interior decor is so hideous, it's actually something of a pleasure to see it all go up in flames. The glam fan in me loves that this high-rise catastrophe takes place during a ritzy formal function. The result: the film is a virtual symphony of billowing chiffon, feather boas, clunky platform disco shoes, and towering hair sculptures.

Given a nothing role, Faye Dunaway and her legendary bone structure (and that
amazing dress) still effortlessly managed to upstage everything else

From a film buff's perspective, it's also a great deal of fun seeing if you catch and count which stars in the film have worked with each other in the past (hint: Love is a Many Splendored Thing) or would again in the future (hint: Airport '79).
The Towering Inferno endures for me as the last of the genre to be sincere enough to play it straight and attempt to balance human drama with spectacular action.

Clip from "The Towering Inferno"  1974

BONUS MATERIAL

The Towering Inferno - 1974

Angel, Angel, Down We Go -1969

A regular reader of this blog (Thanks, Wille!) brought to my attention that the gown Jennifer Jones wears in The Towering Inferno (top image) bears a resemblance to an outfit she wears in 1969's Angel, Angel, Down We Go (bottom image). Jones' Towering Inferno gown was designed by longtime Irwin Allen costume designer Paul Zastupnevich. The outfit she wears in the lower photo is actually an evening pantsuit with a tunic top designed by five-time Oscar-nominated costume designer Renie (pronounced Renay... wouldn't you know it?). You can see costume sketches for The Towering Inferno by clicking on the link to The Irwin Allen News Network below.

The internet offers a wealth of sources for those interested in reading about the production, the rivalries, and all manner of behind-the-scenes trivia regarding The Towering Inferno.

The Towering Inferno Archive
The Irwin Allen News Network

Gossip: Paul Newman Meets Steve McQueen

Poseidon's Underworld: The Towering Inferno

The film was so popular a student drew from it
 for audition material in Alan Parker's Fame (1980)

Burn, Baby, Burn
Gotta love that this movie inspired the 1976 disco classic Disco Inferno by The Trammps

Copyright © Ken Anderson 2009 - 20016

SILENT MOVIE 1976

Were I to try to pinpoint the origin of my lifelong indifference to silent films, my best guess would be my traumatized reaction to the opening sequence of that '60s TV show Silents Please, when I was just an impressionable tyke. Silents Please was a half-hour TV program highlighting films and stars of the silent era. It ran in reruns on Sunday afternoons but never, it seems, at scheduled times I could avoid. It always popped up as a time-filler following a football game or (most terrifyingly) at night when I least expected it.

I don’t recall ever seeing an entire episode all the way through, for each episode began with a startling command from an unseen announcer intoning "Silents Please!" (a pun I didn’t appreciate then and don’t appreciate now), which was my cue to high-tail it out of the living room before the unspooling of the opening montage of silent movie clips which featured a quick “reveal” of Lon Chaney in full The Phantom of the Opera drag. It scared the hell out of me. The nightmares it inspired kept even comic silent movies off my radar for much of my childhood, an antipathy that stayed with me well into maturity.

The Three Silent Stooges
Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise), Mel Funn (Mel Brooks), and Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman)

In later years, when I was going to film school, my wholesale disinterest in classic films of the silent era made me a majority of one among my peers. I saw and studied a great many silent movies in Film History class, but in the end, I remained impressed, yet unmoved. I appreciated what they were able to achieve with no dialogue and such low-tech equipment, but I never responded to the films themselves, finding the silence to be distancing, not engaging.

It was during these college years that Mel Brooks released Silent Movie, a contemporary silent film fashioned as a Hollywood spoof and affectionate homage to the films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Mack Sennett, and Hal Roach. Child of '70s cinema that I am, naturally this was the first silent film I remember ever taking a liking to. 

Touted as the first feature-length silent film to be made in over forty years, 20^th Century Fox released Silent Movie at the height of Mel Brook’s popularity. Following the blockbuster success of Brooks’ western spoof Blazing Saddles, and his horror spoof Young Frankenstein, former television gag writer Mel Brooks, was hailed by critics and audiences alike as the king of motion picture comedy. Rather remarkably, both films (directed and co-written by Brooks) came out in the same year. At the close of 1974, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein occupied the  #1 and #4 slots, respectively, on the list of the year's top boxoffice moneymakers.
Prior to his late-blooming emergence as the comic voice of the '70s, my only familiarity with Brooks was as the writer/director of one of my favorite comedies - The Producers (1967); the co-creator of one of my favorite TV shows - Get Smart; and for that 2000 Year Old Man skit he performed with Carl Reiner that I never really thought was all that funny. Anyhow, by the mid-'70s, EVERYBODY was talking about Mel Brooks, and at 50 years of age, he was suddenly a hit with the hip, college crowd. Naturally, with such a high degree of success, Brooks could virtually write his own ticket when it came to his next film. Sort of.

When Brooks announced his follow-up project was to be a silent film, the natural assumption was that it was to be a film in the vein of its predecessors—a period-accurate recreation of a 1920s-era silent film with doses of irreverent, slightly raunchy, contemporary comedy. Perhaps because director Peter Bogdanovich had already begun production on his own comic film set in the early days of silent movies (Nickelodeon - 1976), Brooks opted to make a contemporary silent film set in the Hollywood of 1976. Its objective: to poke fun at the motion picture industry and gently spoof the comedies of yesteryear. 

Vilma Kaplan: A Bundle of Lust
Bernadette Peters, in what could be called the Madeline Kahn role, as the seductress
hired by Engulf & Devour to corrupt Mel Funn

Since Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein had each successfully launched two of the most valuable players in the Mel Brooks repertory off into careers of their own (Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn), their inability to participate in Brooks' follow-up project was a hurdle audiences were eager to see if Brooks (casting himself in his first lead role) could surmount.

Silent Movie’s premise casts Mel Brooks as Mel Funn, a once brilliant movie director whose career has hit the skids due to alcoholism. Hoping to make a comeback, Funn pitches his idea of making a modern-day silent movie to the head of Big Pictures Studio (Sid Caesar). After initially rejecting the suggestion, the failing studio, desperate for a hit to avoid a takeover by NY conglomerate Engulf & Devour, relents after Mel promises he can fill his movie with big-name stars. Funn, with the help of his two associates Bell & Eggs (DeLuise & Feldman), thus embarks on a slapstick quest to secure the biggest names in Hollywood for new his silent movie.

Art Imitates Life
Silent Movie actually spoofs Mel Brooks' real-life efforts to get a studio
 interested in his making this silent movie

As a follow-up to the phenomenon that was Young Frankenstein, the level of anticipation and expectation surrounding the release of Silent Movie was both its blessing and its curse. Folks expecting the envelope-pushing effrontery of Blazing Saddles or the technically impeccable lunatic genius of Young Frankenstein were forced to content themselves with a genial, sometimes hilarious, mostly hit-and-miss, comedy that delivered a good time, but not really much else.
There were gentle jibes at silent movies (verbose exchanges translated in terse title cards); satirical jabs at the movie business (a sign on an executive's door reads "Current Studio Chief"); and sight gags galore. But it was all rather safe and old-fashioned. In fact, none of the jokes would have looked out of place on a typical episode of Get Smart, and that had gone off the air in 1970.

When Mel falls off the wagon, his friends embark on a search for him accompanied by the usual cliche dissolves of neon-lit nightspot signs. Only this time capped with a Brooks-ian touch of the unexpected

People went to see Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles multiple times, wanting to relive favorite comic moments or catch bits of business missed the first time out. Conversely, Silent Movie was a pretty straightforward affair. All the laughs are accessible, obvious, and intentionally broad. Much in the same way that suspense in a horror film can be sustained even after multiple viewings, while “gotcha” scare moments in horror are effective only once; Silent Movie’s funny but unsubtle slapstick and vaudeville-level mugging didn’t invite a lot of repeat business. 

While failing to live up to the success of its predecessors, Silent Movie was nevertheless a sizable hit, ranking #11 on boxoffice charts at the close of the year. Citing the silent movie angle as more gimmick than legitimate satirical target, critical and popular opinion varied as to the relative merit of the enterprise as a whole. Most willing to forgive the film's elemental inconsequence in favor of applauding what clearly was a labor of love for Brooks; an affectionate valentine to the comics and style of comedy that inspired him in his youth.

Sid Caesar as The Studio Chief
Mel Brooks got his start as one of the staff writers for Caesar's 1950s
variety program Your Show of Shows

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I’m from the generation raised on Laugh-In style blackout comedy. I remember when it was business as usual for corny variety shows to encourage their movie star guests to “let their hair down” in groan-inducing, out-of-character skits and musical numbers. I grew up at a time when stand-up comics all had pseudo-ethnic, faux chummy/hilarious names like Shecky, Totie, Marty, Sandy, and Morty.

In short, I came from the era that produced Mel Brooks.

Hilarious in 1976, but meh in 2015
Now that ALL major movie studios are owned by conglomerates, this jab at the 1967 acquisition of Paramount by Gulf & Western Industries barely rates a smile 

Because my personal comedy tastes run towards the cornball and old-fashioned, I was perhaps less disappointed than many when Silent Movie came out and proved to be a film so tame it could have been made before The Producers. But even I had hoped for something more, even while acknowledging that Brooks’ experiment with the genre was largely successful and good for a few laughs. Not particularly memorable, retold over the water cooler at work, laughs...but laughs.

With its excellent wall-to-wall score (John Morris) of jaunty, amusingly responsive music;  hyperactive grab bag of exaggerated sound effects; and its non-stop barrage of sight gags, blackout skits, and slapstick physical comedy; Silent Movie is as much a send-up of those old Warner Bros. cartoons as it is a take-off on silent-era comedies. 

"Poverty Sucks!" - "Yea for the Rich!"
Ron Carey as Devour / Harold Gould as Engulf

PERFORMANCES

With Silent Movie, Mel Brooks’ usually behind-the-scenes talents (with the occasional voiceover or cameo) are for the first time placed front and center, and, at least for me, the movie suffers for it. Brooks is an undeniably funny writer, gagman, and skit performer; but he’s no actor. And I don't think I ever grasped or appreciated how significant a role a good comic actor plays in making a motion picture work (Gene Wilder is the all-time best) until I watched what happened when a talented Catskills standup comic cast himself as a leading man. 

As an actor, Brooks is very much in line with the borscht belt comic Ernie Bernie (Sid Gould) from That Girl, or the woefully schticky comic played by Johnny Haymer in Annie Hall. They do bits of familiar comedy business and make with the funny faces, but they don't know how to bring a character to life. Brooks is the worst thing in the film. As cute as he is, every moment he's on is like when you're at an office party and the boss comes in trying to show you what an average Joe he is. Brooks plays his material almost like he's patting himself on the back for coming up with it.

Mel Brooks is too likable to actually spoil the film for me, but his lack of...what is it, lunacy? abandon?...seems to have the effect of muting the talents of Feldman and DeLuise. As much as I admire Mel Brooks as a comedy genius, I can honestly say Mel Brooks' films only began to suffer after Mel Brooks began starring in them.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
The star cameos in Silent Movie are a great deal of fun and a major part of the attraction when the film was released (remember, this was the era of the disaster film, star casting was all the rage). Back in the 1970s, it was exhilarating to see these celebrities poking fun at their images. Now, I watch these sequences filled with a great deal of nostalgia. Not just because so many of its performers are no longer with us, but because the film is brimming with familiar faces. Comics, character actors, and TV personalities whose faces you recognize, but whose names you often don't know.

Ranking of celebrity cameos. Favorite to least-favorite:

1. Surrounded by gigolos, Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Mel Brooks for any youngsters out there) looks to be having a great deal of fun playing herself as a haughty movie star (she was the original choice to star in Mommie Dearest, and would have been great). Not only does she get to dance, but she dazzles us with her ability to cross her eyes...one at a time! 

2. Oddly enough, Burt Reynold's egotistical movie star bit plays much funnier now than it did in 1976. Back in the '70s, Burt was something of a male Jayne Mansfield and seemed to be on everything from Hollywood Squares to Johnny  Carson, nonstop. In each instance overworking the "egotistical star" bit to death. Fresh off the flop Lucky Lady with Liza Minnelli, Reynolds was nevertheless a really hot property at the time, with two other films in release in 1976 and Smokey and the Bandit just a year away.

3. Liza Minnelli, the star I most wanted to see in a Mel Brooks movie, is pretty much wasted in a segment requiring her to do little but react to the slapstick antics of Brooks, Feldman, and DeLuise (or their stunt doubles). Decked out in a costume from her Vincente Minnelli-directed flop-to-be A Matter of Time and rebounding from the debacle that was Lucky Lady, the Cabaret star wouldn't appear in another hit movie until 1981s Arthur. And she was only the co-star in that one!

4. What's Marty Feldman looking at there? Tough guy James Caan plays off his macho but dumb image in a brief physical comedy sequence involving an off-balance dressing room trailer. The sequence is cute, but doesn't have much impact.

5. A wheelchair-bound Paul Newman, looking ridiculously gorgeous at 50, spoofs his love of auto racing by leading Mel and his associates on a high-speed chase. Once again, an amusing sequence, but so reliant on stunt doubles, Newman winds up making a cameo in his cameo.

6. The use of legendary French mime Marcel Marceau in a silent movie is inspired and provided the film with one of its biggest laughs. But I'm afraid his brief sequence (whimsically involving walking against the wind to answer a phone) only reminds me of how simultaneously terrifying and annoying mimes can be.


THE STUFF OF DREAMS 

I don’t pretend to know how or why comedy works, but I know that a great many fondly remembered sequences from comedies work well for me precisely because they are silent. I’m no fan of Jerry Lewis, but his 1960 directing debut, The Bellboy, is a favorite because he keeps his mouth shut in it for all but the last scene. And while no one should be deprived of hearing Peter Sellers saying, “Birdie num num” in an Indian accent, Blake Edwards’ The Party (1968) is at its most uproarious when it’s silent.

Another Brooks-ian Sight Gag

When it comes to updates of the silent movie, Mel Brook’s Silent Movie doesn’t come anywhere near approaching the comic eloquence and grace of Michel Hazanvicius’ Oscar-winning silent film The Artist (2011); but Brooks gets points for being the first out of the gate and for succeeding in achieving what I honestly think were his modest goals. He made a funny little movie that said “Thank you” to the silent comics and filmmakers who inspired him to become a comedy legend himself. 

As for me, know I’ve grown fonder of silent movies over the years (Metropolis-1927, is a favorite), but I’ve still yet to garner the courage to watch  Lon Cheney's The Phantom of the Opera.

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES

I worked at a Honda dealership for a time in 1979, and Mel Brooks came in to the service department to pick up his car. I remember asking a co-worker for permission to temporarily hijack his job (escort the customer to his car) so I could talk to Brooks for a while and get his autograph.

BONUS MATERIAL
Here's the intro to the TV program, Silents Please.  I guess I scared easily as a kid.

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 - 2015