ListerUK2001

(Apologies in advance for bad spelling) Mel Brooks had long since lost his touch by the time he embarked on what looks like his final movie. It was certainly a wise move to use subject matter famous the world over and simply begging for parody after the hugely pretentious "Bram Stoker's Dracula". So how did he cock it right up? Like all Mel Brooks failures it starts with the script. Mel and co. didn't even try this time. Whole stretches of the film take place without even an attempt at comedy. There are some dim in-jokes for those only familiar with previous Dracula movies and then there are the very, very rare moments when someone says or does something that looks almost like it was intended to be funny. Out of this barren waste land of a "comedy" there are some gags that do amuse. Hardly a great selling point though is it? "Come see Dracula: Dead And Loving It and very nearly crack a smile once or twice!" It's difficult to be objective about a film made by the man who was once king of parody. However, taken on its own terms, without any knowledge of the director's awesomely surperior previous movies this movie would still tank big time.

Leslie Nielson gave a brilliantly dead-pan performance in Airplane! and the Naked Gun trilogy. He had become famous for his association with movies that specialised in zany spoofs. I can understand, then, why an Executive Producer with no artistic sense would think casting Mr. Nielson as the lead in a Mel Brooks movie would be perfect. Mel should have known better. Nielson can do goofy pratfalls wonderfully as a Detective because he looks the part. But when it's Dracula ... This is how I see it. The art of spoof is to undermine the serious elements of the subject matter you are mocking. For that to work everyone you see in the cast must look like they have walked off the set of a serious movie. If you were making a serious adaptation of Dracula, would you ever think of casting Leslie Nielson? For the pratfalls to work, the film must LOOK genuine for the comedy. Casting someone who could be cast for real as Dracula who then slips on bat s*** and falls down the stairs would be funny!

Didn't mean to moan for as long as that. Anyway Dracula : Dead And Loving It does have some funny bits which is why I recommend you watch the trailer rather than the movie itself.

TV to Film adaptations are notorious for their failure to transfer any of the winning elements that made the show popular. I can't think of a worse proposition than to make a motion picture of the great sitcom Rising Damp. A sublime series that worked for it's performers, scripts and just as importantly it's claustrophobic setting. Even episodes that ventured outside the dingy house in which the characters share, it was often to a single set location for the whole of the second act. In a twenty five minute sitcom, those restrictions can be played up to create some magnificent comedy. On film however, the effect is quite the reverse.

Also Richard Berkinsale had tragically passed away by the time came to make the movie. The fourth and final series had been without him due to contractual obligations elsewhere and it left the final run of episodes wanting (though two or three shows still managed to be perfect).

Yet despite this Rising Damp the movie was by far and away the finest film adaptation of all time. While not capturing the sheer brilliance of the series, there were plenty of hysterical moments littered throughout the film.

First off the three remaining performers are in perfect form. Infact the film was worth making simply as a reason for Lennerd Rossiter to be given an Oscar. Something he was inexplicably denied! His total mastery of the screen as Rigsby is breathtaking.

The script is mostly TV episodes mashed together into an episodic structure. Considering the enormous success of these scripts, it would seem a perfectly good idea. However, anyone familiar with the series will notice how must funnier it was on TV and will be wanting to see something new. Eric Chappell's scripts does contain some new material and it is these moments that distinguish the film as superior to other adaptations. The Rugby scene is a particularly brilliant example.

10/10

Go West continues M-G-M's conventionalising the Marx Brother's once spectacular brand of zany humour into dull pratfalls and tired dialogue. Everything the Marx Brothers thrive on is taken away for this sub-standard movie. No Margarat Dumont (or anyone even remotely pompous enough for Groucho to play against) and a location that offers nothing for the brothers to satirize. Denied these two crucial ingredients the Marx's could never have hoped to make this anything than inferior to the films that preceded them.

However, amongst the long stretches of dull, witless mugging that occurs in the main body of the film, there are flashes of the Marx's former brilliance. Their opening scene together is wonderful. There are then the very, very brief flashes of the brother's past zest and that's about it.

The rousing finale nearly makes the turgid bulk of this film worth the wait, as a speeding train is dismantled for fuel in a frenzied remake of every silent movie gag ever to feature a train.

What makes this film so sad is seeing the once indestructible Marx's get bullied, abused and out witted in almost every scene. Their gradual change from anarchic crusaders to pathetic jesters is heartbreaking. And while they eventually win in the end, the battering they receive throughout the film outweighs the ending's supposedly happy triumph.

Also, with an over reliance on slapstick, it is Groucho who suffers the most. Not only has he no passable foil to unleash his barbed wit upon, the said wit is a string of exhausted and limp insults and banal ramblings. At one point, while gagging a train driver, Groucho looks to the camera and declares "This is the best gag in the picture." Sadly, he's right.

So despite a great opening and good ending, Go West is just another nail in the Marx's coffin.