Mel Brooks Unleashed

Mel Brooks is indubitably a funny guy. A Borscht Belt comedian in an earlier incarnation, he wrote sketches for Sid Caesar’s prime time TV show before realizing he could adapt his material to the big screen. Brooks made his first movie, The Producers, in 1968 and just kept on going, writing and directing and often starring in a succession of zany comedies.

In his honor, the Toronto International Film Festival is presenting a retrospective — Mel Brooks: It’s Good to be the King, which runs at the TIFF Bell Lightbox from Nov. 15 to Dec. 20.

A sampler:

The Producers (Saturday, Nov. 15 at 5 p.m.) is a howl.

The mournful-looking Zero Mostel plays Max Bialystok, a canny Broadway producer who’s had better days. Reduced to near penury, he preys on vulnerable old women to meet his financial obligations. “I used to be the king of Broadway,” he laments. “Six shows running in one night.”

But now, the phone has stopped ringing, and no one is knocking on his door, except Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), a milquetoast accountant who’s come to audit his books. Being crooked, Max wants Leo to “move around a few decibels” to his advantage. “I’m drowning,” he cries. “I’m going under.”

Mostel and Wilder constitute a formidable team. Emotionally vulcanic, Mostel erupts every so often in mock fury. Wilder, his polar opposite, is meek and mild. They make a good team.

Leo may be a sissy, but he’s also clever. Working on the assumption that a flop is better than a hit in terms of dollars and cents, he devises a scheme to bilk Max’s investors. “It’s a matter of creative accounting,” he says triumphantly.

Max needs to find a mediocre play that is sure to close after only one night. At last, after reading dozens of scripts, he stumbles upon it. Max and his new partner, Leo, buy the rights to Springtime for Hitler from a local German immigrant (Kenneth Mars) who’s infatuated with the Nazi leader. Then they hire a director of dubious talents with a history of flops.

Considering the fact that The Producers appeared only two decades after the last Nazi concentration camp was liberated, Brooks was certainly courageous in choosing this theme. But once he unburdened himself of the historical restraints and inhibitions, he never looked back. Brooks delights in poking fun at Nazis and Nazism, squeezing out laughs at a breakneck pace.

In particular, he takes merciless pleasure in raking the pro-Nazi playwright over the satirical coals. The clumsy fellow, who goes around wearing a storm trooper’s helmet, doesn’t have the faintest notion that Max intends to butcher his script for his own ends.

The dance numbers are daring, even mesmerizing. A chorus line of lovely young ladies, clad in black Nazi uniforms and tights, belt out sardonic songs ridiculing Hitler and his gang. Hitler (Dick Shawn), a partial moustache pasted on his upper lip, is a simpering buffoon.

As a spoof, The Producers usually works. There are stiff, heavy-handed moments when the humour crashes into a wall, imperilling the entire enterprise. But on the whole, Brooks cooks up just enough mirth and hilarity to keep the specter of poor taste at bay.

Silent Movie (Thursday, Nov. 20 at 8:45 p.m.), released in 1976, is a biting satire on the Hollywood film industry. As the title suggests, Silent Movie is virtually soundless, with the dialogue appearing at the bottom of the screen.

Brooks plays Mel Funn, a washed-up director who’s been laid low by alcohol. He and his two sidekicks, Bell (the bland Dom DeLuise) and Eggs (the bug-eyed Marty Feldman), ride around Los Angeles in a low-slung yellow sports car. All three use silent-era exaggerated hand motions to express themselves.

Thinking out of the box, Funn tries to revive his career by making a silent movie. Wearing an incongruous naval captain’s white uniform, he pitches his idea to the chairman of Big Picture Studio, portrayed by the comedian Sid Caesar. Funn assures him that his silent picture will be a hit and save the studio from a hostile takeover by Engulf and Devour, a word play on Gulf and Western, a major energy company. Caesar is skeptical, but warms to the idea after Funn promises to sign up big-name stars for the movie.

About one-third of the film charts Funn’s progress in recruiting these actors. In slapstick fashion, he and his two associates try to draw in Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft (Brooks’ off-screen wife) and Paul Newman. They recruit Reynolds in his shower stall, Caan in a tilting cabin, Minnelli in a Hollywood commissary, Bancroft in a nightclub where a waiter demands outrageous tips and Newman on a go-cart track. It’s all done in a cheerful tongue-and-cheek style. The only actor who doesn’t cooperate is the French mime Marcel Marceau, whose cameo is quite amusing.

Bernadette Peters puts in an appearance as Vilma Kaplan, a shapely Engulf and Devour seductress out to sabotage Funn’s film project.

Slapstick humour defines Silent Movie, which is so Mel Brooks.

The complete schedule: