High Anxiety - 1977
A Psycho-Comedy
Director(s)
Mel Brooks
Writer(s)
Mel Brooks (screenplay) &
Ron Clark (screenplay) &
Rudy De Luca (screenplay) (as Rudy DeLuca) &
Barry Levinson (screenplay)
Producer(s)
Mel Brooks producer
Cast
Mel Brooks - Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke
Madeline Kahn - Victoria Brisbane
Cloris Leachman - Nurse Charlotte Diesel
Harvey Korman - Dr. Charles Montague
Ron Carey - Brophy
Howard Morris - Professor Lilloman
Dick Van Patten - Dr. Philip Wentworth
Jack Riley - Desk Clerk at Hyatt Regency
Charlie Callas - Cocker Spaniel
Ron Clark - Zachary Cartwright III
Rudy De Luca - Braces (as Rudy DeLuca)
Barry Levinson - Dennis the Bellboy
Lee Delano - Norton
Richard Stahl - Dr. Baxter
Darrell Zwerling - Dr. Eckhardt
Review by Bill Slocum
Brooks Comedy With A Hitch
Forget Spielberg or Lucas: In 1977, the most eagerly anticipated film in the house I grew up in was the latest from Mel Brooks. This was the guy who transformed neighing horses and baked beans into comedy gold. Now he was taking on Hitchcock. So what if that silent thing he did the year before went nowhere? This was going to be good.
And "High Anxiety" is good, sort of, sometimes. A Nobel laureate psychiatrist, one Richard Harpo Thorndyke, shows up at a mental hospital "for the very, VERY nervous" and soon realizes Nurse Diesel's rigid fruit-cup policy is the least of his staff's issues. Attending a convention in San Francisco, he finds himself wanted for a brutal killing, and with the help of a strange woman who doesn't believe her father is a cocker spaniel, he goes back to the hospital, and his own childhood, to conquer his lifelong fear of heights.
There's a lot of Hitchcock references in "High Anxiety," beginning with an unnecessary dedication to "the master of suspense." The takeoff on "The Birds," a pigeon attack where Thorndyke gets the newly-washed-car treatment, works best, though most of the Hitchcock bits have a kind of inert, pasted-on quality that detract from the movie.
The real challenge Brooks gave himself, and was seriously hobbled by, was in his choice of lead actor: Himself. Brooks is very funny in films when he has some small part, like "The Gov" in "Blazing Saddles." But here you are stuck with him walking through hallways, getting in and out of cars, talking to other characters, i.e. advancing the plot, and it's a great demonstration for anyone who thinks screen presence comes easy. Brooks can mug, but he can't act, and his joke-free scenes (of which there are too many here) have the same awkward quality of watching your nine-year-old nephew's violin recital.
At least he calls on some of his old friends, like Cloris Leachman as Diesel and Harvey Korman as her boy-toy, both of whom are sure laugh-getters. No one makes answering the phone as funny as Madeline Kahn, whose entrance parodying Lucie Mannheim's in "The 39 Steps" is one of Brooks' most effective and subtle nods at Hitchcock's direction.
"High Anxiety" works best when it's not referencing Hitchcock, like when Thorndyke finds himself called on to sing a song at a hotel bar and turns into Sinatra. That's an influential scene in its own right, referenced in "Anchorman," and it is not only funny but showcases a cool title song. Brooks uses his microphone chord as a whip and counsels his audience in mid-chorus to "be good to your parents, they've been good to you."
"High Anxiety" is funny like that off and on, sometimes for five whole minutes at a stretch. But there's too many awkward pauses and some key missteps, like when Brooks and Kahn jump out of character to do an old Jewish couple bit or when Dick Van Patten as one of the hospital staff dies from a serious attack of AM radio. The film also feels like a comedown in the way its shot, which is not with that visually dramatic style Hitchcock perfected but more like a "Love Boat" episode. Given how right Brooks gets tone in his earlier directorial efforts, you really miss it here.
Back in 1977, my father and I walked out of the theater agreeing "High Anxiety" was okay, but nothing special. That still sounds about right. Brooks could have done better; unfortunately, as he soon proved, he could also do worse.
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