For Fritz Feld aficionados it was spot-on.
We did another version of a classic burlesque bit with Henny Youngman, known for his ever-popular groan-worthy one-liners. We see a van speeding along which reads ACNE PEST CONTROL and on top of which is their logo, a huge plastic fly. As the van approaches a corner it nearly collides with a passing truck. The driver hits the brakes, and the van with the fly on top comes to a screeching stop just in time. But it completely unhinges the huge fly, which sails through the air and lands at an outdoor café table where Henny Youngman is having lunch.
The giant fly almost hits Henny, but lands on his table. He shouts to the waiter via title card:
Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.
There was another bit starring Harry Ritz of the Ritz Brothers, one of my comedy idols. The godfather of physical comedy. You could see where Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, and Sid Caesar all got their wacky faces and funny moves from. When I called Harry, he was actually flattered, and thrilled to be a part of our movie. In his scene we see a custom-made tailor shop window with a brown-paper-and-cardboard-stitched cutout of a tuxedo showing us how exquisitely their tailor-made suits are constructed. From the doorway exits Harry Ritz, doing his famous Ritz Brothers crazy walk and proudly wearing the same cutout paper-and-cardboard-stitched suit that we saw in the window.
My last stroke of genius was actually getting the world-famous mime Marcel Marceau to utter the only word we would hear in Silent Movie.
In a title card Dom, Marty, and I are on the telephone. On the other end is Marcel Marceau.
Our title card reads:
Monsieur Marceau, we’re begging you! Would you please be in our silent movie?
We cut to Marcel Marceau, who utters the only real line of dialogue in the entire film: “NON!”
NON!
* * *
—
The best thing about directing actors in a silent film is that you could shout directions as they were acting, and it wouldn’t ruin the shot. We weren’t recording any sound. The same way I didn’t shoot Young Frankenstein in color out of an abundance of caution, here we had no sound-recording devices whatsoever. The crew could laugh as loud as they wanted to! No white handkerchiefs this time around.
I even directed the film with a megaphone to my mouth like they really did in silent movies. I’d shout, “Wave your arms! Bigger gestures! C’mon! We’re in a close-up, widen your eyes! Bernadette, show us you’re really in love! Give us more!”
I had a ball. It was the most fun I ever had directing a movie. I loved working with my crews and had developed a reputation of having a joyful set and this was no exception.
* * *
—
The final script of Silent Movie was the film the public saw, except for a brief sequence that never made it into the film. It was called “Lobsters in New York,” and it starts with a restaurant sign that reads CHEZ LOBSTER. Inside, a huge lobster in a ma?tre d’s tuxedo is greeting two very well-dressed lobsters in evening dress and leading them to a table.
* * *
—
Here I am on a camera boom directing a movie starring me as a movie director.
(Already we thought this was hysterical.)
Then a waiter lobster in a white jacket shows them a menu that says “Flown in Fresh from New York.” They get up and follow the waiter lobster to an enormous tank, where a lot of little human beings are swimming nervously around. The diner lobsters point to a tasty-looking middle-aged man. The waiter’s claw reaches into the tank. It picks up the man, who is going bananas, and that was the end of the scene.
We loved it; we thought it was an inspired turn-about-is-fair-play concept. But when we screened it, it didn’t get a single laugh. An absurdly funny almost genius idea, but no laughs. So out it went! Because the final judgment was always left up to the audience, no matter how I felt about it. If it was supposed to be funny and it didn’t get laughs, it went the way of all the misfires that preceded it, onto the cutting-room floor.
* * *
—
Since there was no dialogue in Silent Movie, music was even more important than in any of my other films. The music became the rhythm of the picture. There was no verbal rhythm to play against or into. John Morris once again rose to the occasion. In our now fifth collaboration, John composed more original music than for any other Mel Brooks movie. It was all big orchestra in big combinations. We were trying to resurrect an old genre without falling back into old clichés. John was very careful not to use a single note of the inevitable silent movie piano in any of the score. His exuberant, upbeat score complemented the na?ve good cheer and good hearts of the three protagonists: Mel, Marty, and Dom, three unstoppable innocents in pursuit of a vision of making a silent movie and the box office stars with which to populate it. From the upbeat “Silent Movie March” to the narcissistic, lush Hollywood theme “At Burt Reynolds’s House,” John Morris was never better.
Silent Movie was released on June 17, 1976, and did surprisingly well at the box office. Roger Ebert, the well-known film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote:
There’s a moment very early in “Silent Movie” (before the opening credits, in fact) when Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, and Dom DeLuise are tooling through Los Angeles in a tiny sports car. They pass a pregnant lady at a bus stop. “That’s a very pregnant lady!” Brooks says (on a title card, of course, since this is a silent movie). “Let’s give her a lift!” The lady gets into the back of the car, which tilts back onto its rear wheels. Mel drives off with the front wheels in the air.
This is far from being the funniest scene in a very funny movie, but it helps to illustrate my point, which is that Mel Brooks will do anything for a laugh. Anything. He has no shame. He’s an anarchist; his movies inhabit a universe in which everything is possible and the outrageous is probable, and Silent Movie, where Brooks has taken a considerable stylistic risk and pulled it off triumphantly, made me laugh a lot.
Privately I was very worried about the effrontery to do a silent movie in 1976, but that review calmed all my fears.
* * *
—
In December 1976, the Exhibitors of America had placed me fifth on their annual list of the twenty-five stars that exert the greatest box-office appeal. I was very proud of that, especially since this was my first starring role and one where I didn’t even speak!
Burt Reynolds was rated sixth that year. He had to put up with picking up the phone at his home and hearing me announce, “Hello, Six. This is Five speaking.’’
So in the end, this crazy idea of doing a silent movie was a success and I could look our studio head Laddie in the eye and not be the object of an “I told you so.”
* * *