I lined up the Merry Men and had them do a cancan-style kick line in the middle of the song. It got a huge laugh.
One of the craziest ideas that I ever had for a film was when an army of knights in suits of armor guard Prince John’s castle. They’re lined up one after the other, barely a foot apart. That’s when we thought, What would happen if you pushed one of those knights? So during the fight at the castle, Robin swings from a chandelier and kicks the last knight in line. One after another, they all come crashing down like a never-ending row of dominoes. It was a spectacular scene. (I keep one of those suits of armor that were made for that scene in my office to this day to remind me of it!)
Among the strange happenstances that occurred while filming Robin Hood: Men in Tights was when we were a little while away from shooting on a castle site we had built in Santa Clarita, California. The surrounding grounds were parched by a drought, all yellow and brown. It looked nothing like a castle and grounds would look in England. I was thinking of actually painting the dry ground green so exterior shots of the castle would look more like it should in Nottingham. But suddenly, it started to rain! And Roy Forge Smith, our gifted production designer, sent a crew out with a ton of grass seed, which they quickly planted all around the castle. It rained nonstop for three or four days, and when we were finally ready to shoot, all the fields around the castle were covered in lush green grass. A minor miracle! Michael O’Shea, our cinematographer, captured it all in brilliant sparkling color.
I had a bunch of great people helping me make the movie behind the scenes. I got some terrific assistance from Peter Schindler, who wore two hats as executive producer and as my second unit director. In another stroke of good fortune our young editor was Stephen E. Rivkin, who later became one of the most sought-after editors in all of Hollywood. (You might have heard of a couple little movies he did called Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar.) He was invaluable in putting the picture together, and still remains to this day one of my dearest friends.
Leah Zappy, who had been with Brooksfilms from its very beginning, was now a production executive and took care of all the complicated aspects of shepherding the film through post-production and delivery. She did such a terrific job that we were both on time and slightly under budget.
Robin Hood: Men in Tights did pretty well at the box office and went on to become quite the cult favorite. Parents often tell me that they introduce Mel Brooks pictures to their kids by starting with Robin Hood.
(I imagine it takes a while longer before they let them see Blazing Saddles.)
Chapter 24
Dracula: Dead and Loving It
To me, the best cinema spoofs are made by directors who love the subject they are satirizing. I’ve never poked fun at any genre that I didn’t absolutely love. Not since Young Frankenstein had I toyed with the idea of doing another horror spoof. There were other famous monsters. Just as Boris Karloff in his portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster made Frankenstein unforgettable, so Bela Lugosi did the same for Count Dracula, king of the vampires, in Tod Browning’s 1931 Universal black-and-white film Dracula.
It all came together in my head when I saw Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun series and was tickled by his deadpan portrayal of his character in the midst of comedy chaos. Then and there, I knew he would make a perfect Count Dracula. That was the spark that eventually became Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
I met with Rudy De Luca and Steve Haberman, just recently my co-writers on Life Stinks, and they both agreed. Steve Haberman was a true horror-film aficionado, and actually later went on to get a doctorate in film studies. His encyclopedic knowledge of classic horror films from the silent Nosferatu (1922) through Tod Browning’s Dracula and on through the Hammer Dracula films was invaluable in putting together our story and screenplay. We took inspiration from all of them, but the one we stayed closest to for the look was the classic Tod Browning Dracula film from 1931. Even though Dracula was shot in black and white, I decided to shoot our film in color. I was probably influenced by the classic Hammer horror films’ memorable use of buckets of blood. Blood doesn’t work unless it’s all over the place in bright vibrant color. And boy, did we use it! (More on that later.)
But we did parody some details from other famous Dracula films. We used the ludicrous hairdo of Gary Oldman’s Count Dracula from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1991 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It featured two big white buns on either side of his head, but instead of using it as a hairdo we just turned it into his big crazy hat. Later in that same film, Dracula’s shadow plays a prominent part. For our version, we made his shadow show the audience Dracula’s real feelings. For example, after he falls down the stairs, even though Dracula doesn’t portray any aftereffects, his shadow limps after him obviously in pain.
In addition to casting the very funny Leslie Nielsen as Count Dracula, I decided that I would play his mortal enemy Professor Van Helsing. I based my character on the Edward Van Sloan version of Van Helsing, but I based my accent on the Albert Bassermann character Van Meer from Hitchcock’s classic Foreign Correspondent (1940). He spoke in a crazy, loopy German accent. I remember Steve saying to me about Bassermann, “Maybe English was his second language, but he spoke it as if it was his fourteenth.”
We were lucky that once again my Academy Award–winning wife had the time to lend us her talents to play a small cameo as a gypsy woman who warns us against the strange count who lives in the castle above the village. Anne would take her fingers and shake her throat while delivering the lines in a salute to famous Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya’s signature shaky delivery.
For the female lead we once again got our talented and beautiful flaming redhead Amy Yasbeck, who was so terrific as Maid Marian in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Her character, Mina, was our damsel in distress, who was at risk of being turned into a vampire by Count Dracula. Her fiancé, the very proper Victorian Englishman Jonathan Harker, was played by the talented Steven Weber, who was starring at the time on the hit comedy TV show Wings.
A good clue to his character is in the dialogue between him and Mina:
Mina: Oh, it makes me so happy to be at the opera! I love this palace of art and beauty!
Jonathan: Oh yes, my dear, the opera is astonishing! The music is fraught with love, hate, sensuality, and unbridled passion!…All the things in my life I’ve managed to suppress so far.
Setting a scene with the wonderful Leslie Nielsen while directing Dracula: Dead and Loving It.