(Credits: Far Out / TCM / Beat Magazine)
Fri 11 April 2025 17:15, UK
Asking a filmmaker to pick the best movie of their career is like asking a parent to name their favourite child. In theory, all of them are viewed equally and loved as much as the rest. Then again, Mel Brooks has never been one to follow convention, so it makes sense there’s a picture he called his pinnacle.
The EGOT winner’s career was born from taking risks and upending the establishment, and he had to fight to do it. His debut feature, The Producers, was a project that virtually every major studio in Hollywood turned down due to its controversial subject matter, but the end result won him an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ and took its place among America’s most beloved comedies.
Blazing Saddles made a flatulent piece of cinema history by incorporating the industry’s first audible farts, and it’s one of an iconic movie’s most iconic moments. And yet, thanks to the prudish nature of the people footing the bill, Brooks had to lie through his teeth several times over to ensure he was able to make the film in exactly the way he wanted.
It would be stating the obvious to say things worked out for the best on both occasions, but neither of those two enduring favourites was the writer, director, producer, and performer’s most cherished work. Instead, he zeroed in on a certified box office success that recouped its budget nine times over at the box office and saw him find the unlikeliest collaborator of his career in the ‘Master of Suspense’ himself, Alfred Hitchcock.
“I’d say Silent Movie is my best film by far,” he told Roger Ebert. “And, let’s face it, the others were pretty good. This is the funniest, the hardest to accomplish, the best. But we could not get the crew to laugh. There we were, knocking ourselves out to be funny and behind the camera, not a snicker. This was a veteran crew. After 50 years of making sound movies, they were afraid that if they made a noise, it would spoil the shot.”
Silent Movie notched four Golden Globe nominations, including ‘Best Picture – Comedy or Musical’ and ‘Best Actor’ in the corresponding category for Brooks. It’s arguably not held on the same pedestal as The Producers or Blazing Saddles, though: it was definitely a hit, and it won rave reviews from critics and audiences, but those two aforementioned titles are the ones that immediately come to mind whenever anyone thinks of the legendary comic’s contributions to the silver screen.
Still, it’s a great movie, and if Brooks thinks Silent Movie is better than The Producers and Blazing Saddles, then it’s hard to argue when he wrote, directed, produced, and played the lead role in it.
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