Le silence des jambons

Damn. I find THIS funny? I must admit I'm really disappointed in myself, but oh well. "Silence Of The Hams" never even comes close to being well-written or well-directed, and like many spoofs it has a fair share of total groaners. I mean, we're talking about the kind of movie here that names a Hannibal Lecter spoof Dr.Animal Cannibal Pizza. I can barely comprehend how devastatingly witless that joke truly is. And then later a Norman Bates copy shows up and his name turns out to be, God help us all, Antonio Motel. And instead of Sharon Stone, there's...Sharon Bone. These makers really do not like overtime. Somehow though, the movie still has a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, probably because writer/director/star Ezio Greggio got a lot of inspiration from "Naked Gun". The entire script feels like Frank Drebin could walk in any second, the dialogues are crammed with all kinds of stupid misunderstandings. I also very much liked Antonio's narration, which usually provides the biggest laughs of them all. If you turn of your brain completely, this movie is great. If you don't: courage.

This movies cover leads you to believe that it is a spoof of Silence of the Lambs, but the movie itself is more of a spoof of Psycho. It has a few good jokes here and there, but for the most part it is the same old gags. That is the case with most spoofs though, dumb joke after dumb joke with a gem scattered here and there. Dom Deleuise plays the Hannibal type character and that is one of the mistakes of the movie. This may be a spoof, but you still need someone with a Hopkins like demeanor. The guy who did Hannibal in "Loaded Weapon 1" was much better. Billy Zane is okay in his role as Joe Dee Foster and there are some others who do all right as well. Though it seems that every spoof has to have a cameo by someone who isn't and never has been a real star. Usually, it is Hulk Hogan or Dr. Joyce Brothers...in this one it is Rip Taylor and Bubba Smith. Is there some rule that says you have to have a cameo from one of these people if you are making a spoof? Though I thought the one scene with John Astin running up behind Billy in the bowling alley was funny...I don't know why.

I can't think of another movie in which an actor replayed his most famous role...for laughs. Millions of people over several decades saw Martin Balsam as the Detective who Gets Killed on the Stairs in "Psycho" (1960). And here he was, 34 years later, playing his every scene from the original as a gag.

Unlike "Psycho" shower murder victim Janet Leigh, Balsam always refused to give interviews on his scenes in "Psycho," feeling it was given too much notice over his other films (he won the 1965 Oscar for "A Thousand Clowns.") I guess he was finally willing to revisit the detective -- for pay. Maybe it was revenge for Balsam to play the role in so bad a movie this time.

Yeah, "Silence of the Hams" is terrible, but as a film artifact, I find Balsam's appearance amazing. His physical appearance, too. He's a fair sight more elderly and frail in "Silence of the Hams" than he was in "Psycho," but he takes his staircase fall ("Again??!!") yet again with grace and humor. Intriguing: this was made by its star, Italian comedian Ezio Greggio, and Martin Balsam died in Italy about a year later. Balsam had appeared in many other Italian-made films. Was this film made in Italy?

I like movie spoofs, but I had been avoiding this one under the impression that it was really bad. I had a lousy night and was looking for a stupid comedy movie to watch, so I finally gave this one a try.

I needn't have been avoiding it for so long. I actually did find it pretty funny. The really good spoof movies I think probably write a lot of gags, and then only put the best of them into the movie. The poorer ones put them all in. The worst put them all in, but the writers were so bad, none of the gags are funny. I'd put this in the middle category.

Despite the title, the movie is more of a spoof of Psycho, with some elements from Silence of the Lambs thrown in, and then some brief spoofy references to other movies.

There's a lot here that doesn't work. I didn't think any of the funny names were funny, but then funny names so rarely are. There are also some gags borrowed from other spoofs, but at least some of them still work. For example, in a shower scene taken from Psycho, the curtain is pulled back to reveal a small orchestra of string musicians. That's been in at least a couple of Mel Brooks' movies (and he has a cameo in this one). That gag is used twice in this film, as when a woman who has just stolen money from her boss is driving in her car and we hear dialog we've already heard running through her head (as in Psycho also). It turns out there's a car next to her, and the people are shouting the dialog through megaphones at her. Stupid, but amusing.

There's a ridiculous scene where the FBI hero shows up at an asylum, and when asked for his badge he produces a waffle. Surrealism is alive! The man asking for the badge was seemingly behind a door, with a little slot to look out of. As he opens this door, and the camera pulls back, we see the door guard is actually just holding a board in front of his face!

Another Psycho gag is when Martin Balsam falls backwards down a flight of stairs. As much as I like Psycho, that scene looked fairly goofy. Here, he falls down and since the stairs are actually being back-projected (or bluescreened), they turn around 360 degrees, and he also inexplicably falls through the sky as well. I found that amusing. When he finally hits the landing, he's stabbed by a knife, then a barbecue fork, and a number of other things including a dildo. That was just stupid.

So anyway, I feel this movie, while not great, is underrated. If you like movie spoofs, and you're familiar with Hitchcock's Psycho and Silence of the Lambs, I think it's likely you'll find some humor in it as I did.

An unbelievably lame attempt at a parody flick,with all the obligatory sight gags,except here they are completely lame-brained and usually have nothing much to do with anything,and most of the verbal gags are just plain desperate for laughs,like when a woman enters a room dressed completely in red and the narrator(putting on an extremely irratating french accent)calls her "the woman in blue".Hilarious.The rest of the jokes pretty much follow that form,simply changing key words in things and they are all completely stupid.Also,the usually fantastic Billy Zane is no comedy actor,and looks very uncomfortable here.A thoughrouly boring movie.Parody flicks are among the cleverest comedies ever made and if you want a good one,try Spy Hard,Naked Gun or Airplane but definatly not this!