Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man
- 9 minutes ago
- 4 min read
As Mel Brooks nears his 100th birthday, it's the perfect time to celebrate the storied career of one of America's most successful, boundary pushing funny men.
Of course, if you follow Mr. Brooks, you know he's also been behind some superb serious films over the past 60 years as well.
In the new documentary MEL BROOKS: THE 99 YEAR OLD MAN! Director Judd Apatow sits down for a long interview with Mel, pulling you into four hours of the best scenes from Mel's films and a treasure chest of behind the scenes footage and home movies that cover his entire life.
I'm a HUGE Mel Brooks fan, love and highly recommend his recent autobiography "All About Me!" and thought I knew a LOT about Mel.
What a great surprise Apatow's loving documentary is. Rich in detail, expansive in its look at Mel's early stand up, his days as a TV writer and the long stretches of time where he didn't work at all.
His first film, 1967's "The Producers" was an absolute flop, which is hard to remember today, after respect grew for it in hindsight and its later transformation into one of Broadways' biggest hits in a musical adaption written by Mel.
The stories he shares of being at the 1967 opening day in a massive movie theater with only two other patrons are hilarious and heartbreaking.
He followed that up with 1970's "The Twelve Chairs", the only film detailed here that I've never seen, but am committed to seeing soon. Considered another smart and deft satire, this time of classic Russian literature, it too bombed at the box office.
Of course, the world of comedy changed in 1974 when Mel unleashed both "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein" on audiences the same year. Both massive hits, they brought Brooks a level of awareness and love rarely bestowed on comic films.
Looking back at "Blazing Saddles"now is a fascinating thing. It's as hilarious and jaw droppingly funny today as it ever was, for anyone that has the intelligence to recognize satire and the savage, direct attack that it was on racism. Co-written by Richard Pryor, Mel and cast went up to the line and a thousand miles past it.
I'd love to watch it in a room full of today's sensitive, woke, fragile beings who have no concept of intelligent satire, or the ability to conceive of a time when the parameters of smart comedy and language were anywhere beyond one's immediate reach.
Mel pushed those boundaries again, and again, and again.
The film is packed with interviews new and old, painting a vivid picture of relationships with many TV and film legends, including Mel's special friendship with Carl Reiner that spanned many decades. Their stand up routine, the 2000 Year Old Man, kicked off Mel's career and launched a friendship for the ages. The two shared a weekly dinner until Reiner's death in 2020.
Conan O'Brien, Adam Sandler, Dave Chappelle, Ben Stiller and Dana Gould offer laugh out loud, heartfelt new perspective, while older clips provide real behind-the-scenes moments with Sid Caesar, Gene Wilder, Johnny Carson, Larry Gelbart and so many more.
Mel's long marriage to Anne Bancroft is well detailed and their many archival home movies and TV interviews reveal just how perfect that unlikely marriage was. You could see it in every frame of one of Mel's criminally underrated films, 1983's "To Be Or Not To Be", the rare movie that he starred in but didn't direct, but that he and Anne appeared in together. See it! I dare you not to laugh at their long, Polish song and dance numbers and every single thing Charles Durning does in the movie.
Whatever Mel Brooks film is your favorite, you'll see it detailed here, from "Spaceballs" and "High Anxiety" to the poorly titled "Life Stinks" which Mel would love to have back to rename before its release.
I also loved how the documentary delved into Mel's work under Brooksfilms, his separate producing company devoted to bringing serious films to the screen. His first effort under that banner was "The Elephant Man", which was hugely successful, showered with awards and served as the major film debut of Director David Lynch. Lynch shares detailed stories of Mel watching his only film at the time, 'Eraserhead" and his certainty that Brooks was going to not consider him. What happens repeats itself again and again, as Brooks sees something in young talent that others don't, launching one career after another.
Their names are now legendary.
At nearly four hours, spread across two parts, this fitting tribute to Brooks is packed with memories and vital history, the summary of a brilliant career that changed American comedy forever.
It's exhaustive but never slow. I would have loved to see anything about Mel's Broadway experience delivering "Young Frankenstein: The Musical" to the theater. We saw it multiple times on Broadway and loved it, but critics seemed determined to not let him succeed as he had with "The Producers". It was greatly underappreciated in my book.
At 99, Brooks is still alive and thriving, working hard to deliver more work in his final years. I can't wait to see what he adds to his amazing legacy.
MEL BROOKS: THE 99 YEAR OLD MAN gets an appreciative and nostalgic A.
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. You are truly one of a kind.
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