“Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup. ” – Nurse Diesel
Number of Times Seen – 1 (1 Aug 2018)
Brief Synopsis – In a spoof of Hitchcock films, a psychiatrist with a fear of heights must try and figure out who is murdering members of his staff.
My Take on it – I have always been a big fan of Mel Brooks and the way that he has always been able to parody other films is amazing.
This time, he once again does a great job while taking elements of many of Alfred Hitchcock’s films and finding ways to present them in a hilarious fashion.
Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t very coherent and doesn’t manage to flow very well.
It feels as if they taped together many Hitchcock references and built a flimsy story around it instead of creating a story with elements of Hitchcock built in along the way.
They still do manage to get the point across here despite this.
Besides Brooks, many of the actors used in his film are among his “usual suspects” with Harvey Korman, Dick Van Patten, Madeline Kahn and Chloris Leachman are giving superb performances as typical Hitchcockian characters and keep things funny for the entire time.
All together, this is quite a fun film and even Hitchcock himself enjoyed it and was quoted as saying “Splendid! I wish I had done it.” which is truly high praise from such a great director himself.
Bottom Line – As usual, Brooks does an amazing job parodying a genre. This film’s ability to take so many of elements of what has made Hitchcock films so popular and uses them in hilarious ways is excellent. The story itself isn’t so coherent yet still manages to get across what the purpose of this film was. Besides Brooks, many of his “usual suspects” appear here and help keep things really enjoyable and funny the whole time. Recommended!
MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The bird droppings were actually mayonnaise and chopped spinach. However, Mel Brooks reported to Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” that the helicopter spraying the fake bird droppings scared the pigeons so much that he believed half of the bird droppings were real. (From IMDB)
Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)
_______________________________________
Check out my *updated* movie stats here
To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link
To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)
Here is a link to my movie index A-Z
MovieRob 
Pingback: Temporal Top Ten – 1977 |