High Anxiety
HIGH ANXIETY (15)
D: Mel Brooks
20th Century Fox/Crossbow (Mel Brooks)
US 1977
94 mins
Comedy
W: Mel Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy DeLuca & Barry
Levinson
DP: Paul Lohmann
Ed: John C. Howard
Mus: John Morris
Mel Brooks (Richard Thorndyke), Madeline Kahn
(Victoria Brisbane), Cloris Leachman (Nurse Diesel), Harvey Korman (Dr. Charles Montague), Ron Carey (Brophy), Howard Morris (Prof. Lilloman), Dick Van Patten (Dr.
Wentworth)
Mel Brooks' parody of Alfred Hitchcock suspense films
isn't quite as good as his best work, but it's far from his worst.
It probably helps if you've seen a great deal of the
films it sends up (North By Northwest, Vertigo, etc.) or the majority of the jokes will go straight overhead.
Brooks does a good job in the lead, but his talents
most certainly lie in scriptwriting rather than performing.
6/10
