Another camera twist was a scene where Harvey and Cloris are hatching a plot to destroy Dr. Thorndyke, who’s a threat to their evil scheme. It’s shot at a Hitchcockian angle from beneath a glass coffee table and the camera again develops its own personality. As Cloris puts her coffee cup on the glass table, temporarily blocking our camera’s view of the actors, the camera moves to get a better view of our villains. Now Harvey puts his coffee down and once again the camera, obviously highly annoyed, moves away to see the action. The scene continues for another minute and then finally the camera is completely frustrated when Cloris puts a huge tray of apple strudel down, which completely covers the entire table. The camera quits in disgust. (I think Hitchcock liked that one a lot.)
One of the funniest and most memorable scenes in the whole film was the “North by Northwest” corner of the Golden Gate Park scene in which I flee from a scary attack by “The Birds.” A group of them gather on the nearby jungle gym and then proceed to chase me and pelt me with droppings. Our prop department found the pigeon wrangler who actually trained the birds for The Birds, and they got fifty or sixty trained pigeons to fly on cue. They made a mixture of spinach and mayonnaise to look like bird poop, and then loaded it into squirt guns and shot at me from above the pigeons, out of frame. By the time the scene ended my suit, my hair—everything was completely covered. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just mayonnaise and spinach, some of the pigeons decided to contribute to the realism of the scene by unloading on me. Sometimes when a movie is over, I get to keep my wardrobe. Now you can understand why I didn’t take any of my wardrobe home from High Anxiety.
Strangely enough, the title High Anxiety, which I had come up with, went on to become a well-known phrase in our lexicon, as if it was a real medical term. In 1990, years after the movie came out, I saw the term splashed across the cover of Time Magazine. It was a story about Wall Street with a photo of Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock in Safety Last! (1923). I said to myself, “There is no ‘high anxiety.’ I made it up. It’s not real. It’s not a medical term or a psychiatric term. It’s not a real condition. It’s just anxiety with the word ‘high’ in front of it!” But I wasn’t going to upset the apple cart. If the world thinks “high anxiety” is a real thing, let it be real. Who am I to argue?
High Anxiety premiered on December 25, 1977. At that premiere screening, Hitch sat right next to me. I had my own high anxiety awaiting his reaction. He didn’t laugh. He just sat and he watched. He only broke up once. When the birds let go and plastered me with their droppings, then I could see his shoulders shaking. When the film was over, he got up and walked out. He didn’t say he liked the picture. He didn’t say he hated the picture. He didn’t say anything. He just left.
I was devasted. And really worried.
I did not take this suit home for obvious reasons. (The dry cleaning would have been too expensive!)
Not long after, when I came into the office, there on my desk was a huge box covered with silver paper and red ribbon. I tore the paper open and underneath was an impressive wooden case with a label that read: CHATEAU HAUT BRION 1961. I opened it to see six big, beautiful magnums of Chateau Haut Brion 1961. A priceless gift of one of the finest wines ever made.
There was a note:
My dear Mel,
What a splendid entertainment, one that should give you no anxieties of any kind.
I thank you most humbly for your dedication and I offer you further thanks on behalf of the Golden Gate Bridge.
With kindest regards and again my warmest congratulations.
Hitch
Needless to say, all my worries disappeared. If there was one person in the world I really wanted to like the picture, it was Alfred Hitchcock, and god bless him, he did. And as a thrilling bonus, I could now refer to him as “Hitch.”
* * *
—
Hitch knew something not everyone knew—that I had become a devotee of fine wines and had a wine cellar featuring some really classic vintages. I don’t know a lot, but I do know a lot about wine. (I’m not bragging. It’s just a fact.)
I fell in love with wine when I went to dinner one night at Gene Wilder’s house in the Village over fifty years ago. Up until then I thought wine was made by Manischewitz—a sweet wine that Jews drink on Passover. I had no idea what was in my mouth when Gene poured me a glass of wine at that fateful dinner. All I knew was that it was NOT Manischewitz, and that it was sublime.
“What is this wine?” I asked him.
He said it was Nuit-Saint-Georges, a French pinot noir from a sub-region of Burgundy’s C?te de Nuits. All I can tell you is that it was a profound taste revelation!
Ever since that night I have loved good red wine. Often French, sometimes Italian, and occasionally something delicious from the Napa Valley. And if I go to a Passover dinner, I bring a bottle of my own wine. No more Manischewitz for this guy!
Here is the note that Alfred Hitchcock sent me, along with that beautiful case of wine.
I never got around to going as far as planting grapes and establishing a Mel Brooks vineyard. But funnily enough a couple of guys who make wine up in Napa Valley named Scotti Stark and Michael DeSantis created a wine they dedicated to a signature phrase from Blazing Saddles. In the movie, when making a speech as the governor I expect a very big affirmative response from the audience and when I don’t get it I angrily point to a man in the crowd and say, “I didn’t get a HARRUMPH out of that guy!”
They seized on that word and with my blessing made a beautiful cabernet sauvignon called Harumph. So if you’re disappointed when you don’t get a “harrumph” out of your audience, you can always buy a great bottle of Harumph wine instead.
Chapter 16
Brooksfilms
High Anxiety was actually the start of a new chapter in my career. Not only was I writing it with my co-writers, directing it, and starring in it, but for the first time I was also the producer. It was a natural outcome of overseeing my movies at every stage from script to screen. By this time, I was closely following their distribution and taking a hand in advertising, publicity, and where and how the film was being released.
In order to do all this, I needed help. When I told Anne that I needed someone to assist me in this new job of producing she immediately said, “I’ve got the guy.”
Stuart Cornfeld joined me as my assistant producer on High Anxiety and became a part of my team. My wife had met Stuart when they worked together at a new program she was involved in called the Directing Workshop for Women at AFI, the American Film Institute. In addition to working with me, Stuart was also helping Anne develop her first film as a writer/director, Fatso. Anne was going to write it, star in it, and direct it. It was about an overweight Italian man whose sister is determined to get him to lose weight so he can be healthy. Anne would play the sister and Dom DeLuise would play the brother. Anne wrote the Fatso script specifically for Dom, who was a good friend of ours at that point. It was very close to her heart because she was from an Italian family and knew better than anybody how wacky, funny, and touching their behavior could be.