Silent Movie (1976)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Mel Brooks

Writers:

Mel Brooks (screenplay) &
Ron Clark (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

16 June 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

A film director and his strange friends struggle to produce the first major silent feature film in forty years.

Plot Keywords:

Talking Mime | Self Referential | Murphy Bed | Armor | Motorcycle Cop

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Golden Globes. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Mel Brooks	...	Mel Funn
Marty Feldman	...	Marty Eggs
Dom DeLuise	...	Dom Bell
Sid Caesar	...	Studio Chief
Harold Gould	...	Engulf
Ron Carey	...	Devour
Bernadette Peters	...	Vilma Kaplan
Carol Arthur	...	Pregnant Lady
Liam Dunn	...	Newsvendor
Fritz Feld	...	Maitre d'
Chuck McCann	...	Studio Gate Guard
Valerie Curtin	...	Intensive Care Nurse
Yvonne Wilder	...	Studio Chief's Secretary
Harry Ritz	...	Man in Tailor Shop
Charlie Callas	...	Blindman

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:K-3 (cinema release) (1976) | Portugal:M/6 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Netherlands:AL | Canada:G (video rating) | Sweden:Btl | Brazil:Livre | Australia:PG | Finland:S | Iceland:L | Norway:7 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:6 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

University of California, Irvine, California, USA

Company:

Crossbow Productions

Trivia:

Marcel Marceau, the famous mime, has the only speaking line in this movie: "Non!" (when refusing a role in the silent film). As a result, the movie has been listed in the Guinesss Book Of World Records as having the fewest spoken lines of any sound movie.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Mel Funn walks into Big Picture Studios to sell his idea of a silent movie to the CEO, his fingers are supposed to be stuck crossed together. For a few seconds after entering the office his fingers return to normal before shaking the CEO's hand.

Quotes:

[first lines]
[last lines]
Marcel Marceau: [the only line heard] No!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Curb Your Enthusiasm: Mel's Offer (#4.1)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

Manhattan

This is a silent review

In the land of Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles is often deemed king. Equal successes like Young Frankenstein and The Producers are the king's notorious sons, while Spaceballs is his court jester. And I think it's safe to say Robin Hood: Men in Tights and History of the World Part I would be the beheaded wives unable to bear him children.

But, to stretch this metaphor so thin you can see the blood running through the blue veins of its translucent skin, there's the wise old man, an adviser -- he is, in fact, the king's ailing father. Such is Silent Movie, and such is its role in the kingdom.

Making a silent film in 1976 was a gutsy move, which Brooks parodies by making the plot of Silent Movie about a director trying to make a silent picture. With only one word of dialogue -- spoken, ironically, by Marcel Marceau -- the film relies heavily on the forgotten arts of vaudeville and slapstick. Brooks is not foreign to these tricks; in fact, they have always been the primary source of laughter in all his movies. Sight gags and outrageous behavior are his fodder, and he uses them abundantly here: the Coke machine battle; the board room's reaction to Vilma Kaplan's picture; the heart monitor/Pong machine; and more.

Silent Movie is full of laughs, far more than any director has the right to expect. The reason is because Mel Brooks (who is teamed up here with the very funny duo of Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman) will try anything for a laugh, no matter how silly. Even if we're not laughing, we're chuckling; and if we're not chuckling, we're smiling at the audacity.

To return brazenly to that thin metaphor I hatched earlier would be a kind of critical suicide. Yet I might as well. Blazing Saddles may be king, and Silent Movie may be the wise adviser. And Young Frankenstein and The Producers may be princes. But royalty usually serves a god. That god is Mel Brooks -- and with every movie of his that I see, I realize just how much I love going to his church.