Trivia for
Silent Movie (1976) More at IMDbPro »

• 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.
  
  
• The logo for Big Picture Studios features the slogan "Ars est pecunia" which is "Art is money" in Latin. This is a takeoff on the MGM slogan "Ars gratia artis" which means "Art for art's sake."
  
  
• The villainous company Engulf & Devour is a spoof of Gulf & Western, which between 1965 and 1970 swallowed up 80 different companies, including Paramount Pictures in 1966.
  
  
• At the sneak preview of the silent movie, several posters for Young Frankenstein (1974) are visible in theater lobby.
  
  
• One scene shows the skyline of New York City. The orchestra begins playing "San Francisco", and the music comes to a sudden and noisy halt. The orchestra then goes into "I'll Take Manhattan".
  
  
• Mel Brooks claimed that he was able to get all of the big star cameos (Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Paul Newman, etc.) for under $300 a day, far below there normal salaries. Though, of course, they didn't have to learn any lines.
  
  
• The first of Mel Brooks's films in which he plays the lead role.
  
  
• The Silent Movie DVD contains audio tracks in three languages, plus an English subtitle track.
  
  
• The cameo in this film was the last movie appearance for Harry Ritz, whom Mel Brooks described as "the funniest man on Earth" and one of his strongest comedic influences.
  
  
• Brooks and his writers concoct a sight gag they loved, in which the customers at a seafood restaurant would be human-sized lobsters, who pick terrified humans out of an aquarium to be cooked for dinner. However, the gag bombed at sneak previews and was deleted.
  
  
• According to Carl Reiner's book, "My Anecdotal Life", he taught Anne Bancroft how to cross her eyes one at a time. She does this in her scene with Marty Feldman and again during the credits.
  
  

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