High Anxiety [DVD]

High Anxiety is a spoof of all of the major Alfred Hitchcock films. Both the characters and the plot line are the sort of thing you literally laugh out loud at. Mel Brooks plays a psychiatrist at the Institute for the very very nervous and has an extreme phobia of heights. The film is the same sort of humour as "Blazing Saddles" (but funnier) and also stars the magnificent Madeline Kahn who compliments Brooks perfectly. This film is so underated its untrue. From the pointy breasted bondage crazed Nurse Diesal to the fumbling nice-but-dim chauffer Brofy - the film just gives laugh after laugh - you just never want this film to end! It really does put the Leslie Nielson spoofs to shame. It is the funniest film I have ever seen.

"Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup!" Trying to explain why you like one Mel Brooks film and have no particular feeling for another is like trying to explain why one guy slipping on a banana peel is funny and another guy doing the same is a medical emergency. All I know is that I think that line, especially as stated by Nurse Diesel, is uproarious and that High Anxiety is one of my favorite Mel Brooks films. Some say it's a take-off on Hitchcock, or even a satire. Far from it, in my view. I think it's an affectionate, good-natured hug from Brooks for a director he respects. So, on one level, we can sit back and enjoy the Hitchcockian references, some of which are very clever. On another level, we still can enjoy the famous Brooksian low comedy that sends one gag after another almost as fast as we can blink. When the two come together...when the birds splatter a fleeing Dr. Thorndyke, for instance...it's a match made in heaven. Besides, anyone who can turn a man being strangled in a telephone booth into a coy phone sex scene has my vote.

Sure, the movie is erratic, but that's Brooks. What makes so many of the gags work, I think, is that Brooks, as the dignified, mystified Dr. Thorndyke, is an observer. Brooks in this movie reacts to things far more often than he instigates. And if you enjoy the Hitchcock films that flash by -- Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, Spellbound, Under Capricorn, Notorious, The Birds and such -- there is a built-in level of affectionate amusement. High Anxiety, for all it's imperfections, is funny. This is no criticism of many of Brooks' other films, but I also think High Anxiety has a lot of charm, more than any of his except Young Frankenstein and The Producers (the first version).

Brooks does an outstanding job playing Thorndyke, the new head of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous. He may be the center of the story, but it's a quiet center; he surrounds himself with memorable grotesques he's not afraid to let steal their own scenes. Among others, there's Harvey Korman ("Less bondage, more discipline!"), Madeline Kahn playing one of Hitchcock's blonde ice queens, Cloris Leachman playing a remarkably ugly head nurse and fitted out with what seems to be an armor-plated bra, and an assortment of low comics doing fine bits, including Charlie Callas as a patient who thinks he's a cocker spaniel. Don't let him get close to your leg. The one moment when Brooks grabs the film for himself is when Dr. Thorndyke is persuaded in a hotel bar to take the mike and sing. Brooks does such a great combination of cheery lounge lizard and a self-consciously swinging Sinatra he almost stops the movie in its tracks.

If the DVD transfer is anything like the Region 1 release, it should have been much better. There's no excuse for a releatively recent movie not to have a crisp and true-color DVD release.

Nobody is safe from satire, not even Alfred Hitchcock. But Mel Brooks straddles the line between parody and affectionate homage in "High Anxiety," a hysterical psychiatric comedy that deftly references all sorts of Hitch films -- while keeping in Brooks' trademark slapstick, hilarious dialogue, and weird characters.

Dr. Richard Thorndyke (Brooks) has just been hired as the director of Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, VERY Nervous, after the sudden death of the previous administrator. Something odd seems to be going on -- screams are heard, a patient signals Thorndyke with a mirror, and Dr. Charles Montague (Harvey Korman) frightens a patient into fits. Then one of the doctors dies mysteriously, while trying to leave the conspiracy.

And when Thorndyke is lecturing at a psychiatry convention, the evil Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman) sends a hired killer (wearing a Thorndyke mask) to frame the doctor for murder. Now Thorndyke must elude the police and the killer, clear his name with the help of a mysterious blonde heiress (Madeleine Kahn), and overcome his crippling "high anxiety."

As a homage/spoof, this is gold. Brooks deftly weaves together elements and storylines from various Hitchock movies, including "Vertigo" and "Spellbound," with some nods to "Psycho," "North By Northwest" and "The Birds." There's dizzying looks down a wooden tower, newspaper "stabbings" in the shower, and Madeleine Kahn's strange not-so-icy blonde.

But it's also a great movie in its own right. Rather than outright slapstick as in some of his movies, Brooks instead crafts a clever thriller framed with delicious comedy -- he even makes fun of some standard filmmaking devices. For example, Thorndyke's hotel suite is switched for a top-floor room because of a call from... "a Mr. McGuffin."

And he fills it with hysterical comedic situations, like Victoria mistaking the sounds of a life-or-death struggle for a phone sex pervert, or Thornduke being assaulted by a crazed bellboy. And his dialogue is solidly quotable in this one ("Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup"). The highlight has to be murder-by-bad-pop song, where a man is trapped in a car with the unspeakably bad "If You Love Me Tell Me Loud Loud Loud."

Gene Wilder wasn't available when this was made, so Brooks took the lead himself. The seriousness of the character doesn't entirely fit him, but he's a solid enough Thorndyke, especially when he has to give a G-rated speech about penis envy.

Most of the comedy comes from an unfortunately blonde Madeleine Kahn as the chic love interest, as well as a ghoulish Leachman and S&M enthusiastic Korman ("Too much bondage, too much bondage, not enough discipline!"). And Ron Carey and Howard Morris round the cast off, as the photographically obsessed chauffeur and the stereotypical little German shrink.

"High Anxiety" is an affectionate parody/homage to Hitchcock -- even Hitchcock was pleased by it -- but it's also a solid comedy movie. Definitely worth seeing!