Höhenkoller

Mel Brooks' delirious comedy/thriller is a delight even if you're not already an Alfred Hitchcock fan--but if you *are,* you'll love it even more as you peg specific spoofs/references to such Hitch classics as SPELLBOUND, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH '56 (Brooks' piano bar rendition of the title song is the movie's highlight) and THE BIRDS. While Gene Wilder would've been perfect casting as acrophobic psychiatrist Dr. Richard H(arpo). Thorndyke, Brooks is nevertheless as irresistable as he is irrepressible, with Madeline Kahn a fine match for him as the flakiest mysterious blonde this side of Kim Novak. Brooks' stock company of Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Ron Carey, and Howard Morris (as Professor Little-Old-Man, er, Lillolman) are in fine form. Like all of Brooks' best movies, the plot would work just fine as a straight thriller, and the spoofing is as affectionate as it is hilarious. It's a comedy to go crazy over!

Mel Brooks takes on Hitchcock movies like "Vertigo" and "Spellbound "with a dash of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" thrown in. This is an excuse to get the whole Brooks' gang dealing with mental institutions and mental illness. Of course, it is utter zaniness as Brooks as the hospital director is in a madhouse (no pun intended). The patients have nothing on the doctors when it comes to outrageous behavior. The problem here is that Brooks never knows when to quit. With really well done comedies like "Young Frankenstein" and "The Producers" we see his genius with good scripting and characters filling out the fabric of the film. Here it's almost anything for a joke, including a casual reference to Jack Benny and highly dramatic music in one scene which turns out to be a concert band going by in a bus. These are fun, but some of the stuff isn't and draws attention outward.

Mel Brooks is a very funny man, and though sometimes I think his comedy is a little on the low side, "High Anxiety" has some truly hilarious moments.

Mel riffs on Hitchcock, right down to Madeline Kahn's gray suit a la Kim Novak in Vertigo. He combines scenes from "Spellbound," "Vertigo," "Foreign Correspondent," "The Birds," "Psycho," "Dial M for Murder," and "North by Northwest" in this story of a man taking over as the head of a mental sanitarium, replacing a man who is murd - uh, dead.

Kahn is the Hitchcock blonde whose father is in the asylum. To give you an idea of this place where the lunatics have definitely taken over - Cloris Leachman plays a nurse who's into S&M with Harvey Korman. Both of them are a riot. Mel plays it straight which makes him even funnier.

I have two favorite scenes - the first is Mel, doing a perfect imitation of Sinatra's style, singing "High Anxiety" to Kahn. He's fabulous, and the look on Kahn's face is delicious.

My other favorite scene occurs when Brooks and Kahn disguise themselves as elderly people to get through airport security. Psychiatric expert Brooks thinks the more noise you make, the less people notice you. The two of them do a fabulous skit which is priceless.

We really lost a treasure when we lost Madeline Kahn, one of the all-time great talents. It's wonderful to see this and remember her.

I do believe that because of the humor, the film can be enjoyed without having seen the Hitchcock films spoofed, but of course, it's all the better if you have. A delightful film.

Mel as a psychiatrist? That's crazy!

But it's funny.

And so is "High Anxiety", a spoof of everything Hitchcock, with a few touches of Mel's own creativity dashed here and there.

As head psychiatrist for the Institute for the Very, VERY Nervous, Mel finds strange goings-on involving kidnapping, murder, double-crossing and Harvery Korman in leather.

Nearly every big Hitchcock scene is clobbered as the story progresses: the shower scene in "Psycho", the jungle gym scene in "The Birds", the shooting in "North by Northwest", the climax of "Vertigo".... The list goes on and on.

Mel does too, God bless him. Laugh after laugh after laugh is produced, and Mel and his writers seem to have an inexhaustable supply of sight gags, one-liners and word plays. And they all work.

Suffice it to say, this isn't as funny as "Blazing Saddles", but it's prime Mel and if you're like me, almost any Mel is good Mel.

Eight stars. And he has a lovely singing voice, too.

Though often overlooked in favor of Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein, I believe this to be the pick of Brooks' parodies. Whether you share this opinion would depend on your familiarity with all things Hitchcockian.

It is not only Vertigo, as the title suggests, that gets the Brooks treatment here, but The Birds, Spellbound and Psycho are all parodied to various degrees of subtlety. Many of these films key scenes are simply re-enacted with comic touches, whilst the Hitchcock formalae is very much in evidence. The style is particularly amusing in its parody. Highlights include a probing camera becoming all too literally intrusive when it crashes through a pane of glass in the window, and a dramatic sound composition turning out to be merely the didactic passing bus load of a touring philamonic orchestra.

Resisting the out and out farce of his earlier effort, Blazing Saddles, and managing not to evolve into simply being a one joke movie such as the tendency of his recent efforts, High Anxiety is Brooks at his most clever. The cast, mainly consisting of Brooks regulars, all display splendidly entertaining and aptly silly impersonations of recognisible Hitchcock stereotypes. It is Brooks' finest hour however, with not only directing, writing, and acting to his credit but singing as well!!!