Still Blazing: Mel Brooks
October 7 through October 31
"My comedy is half wit, half physical, half disgusting, and sometimes half beautiful," says Mel Brooks. His career has spanned over 50 years, from writing for television (one of the inventors of GET SMART), to acting for stage and film, to directing and producing films (both his own works and unexpected pictures like David Lynch's ELEPHANT MAN). Since adapting THE PRODUCERS into a Broadway musical, Brooks has joined the elusive fraternity of those who have received the Oscar, Emmy (as both actor and writer), Tony and Grammy.
 AFI Member Passes will be accepted at all screenings in the Mel Brooks series.
THE PRODUCERS
Long before The Producers was a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical sensation, Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel starred in Mel Brooks's Oscar-winning, non-musical original about two schlubs out to bilk old ladies' fortunes. The Broadway musical was retooled for the big screen with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane reprising their stage roles.
DIR/SCR Mel Brooks; PROD Sidney Glazier. US, 1968, color, 88 min. Rated PG
SPACEBALLS
In Brooks' silly take on Lucas' STAR WARS saga, characters use the "Schwartz" instead of the Force, and Rick Moranis is the diminutive Dark Helmet (Vader with a Napoleon complex).
DIR/PROD Mel Brooks; SCR Mel Brooks, Thomas Meehan and Ronny Graham. US, 1987, color, 96 min. Rated PG
BLAZING SADDLES
The quaint frontier town Rock Ridge is at the mercy of mustache-twirling villainy. Harvey Korman plays robber-baron Hedley Lamarr. Will the town put its faith in black sheriff Cleavon Little? Will gunslinger Gene "The Waco Kid" Wilder sober up to help? Will Dietrich-esque Madeleine Kahn find out the twooooth?
DIR/SCR Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor and Alan Uger; PROD Michael Hertzberg. US, 1974, color, 93 min. Rated R
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
Gene Wilder's "Dr. Fronk-en-steen" returns to the family castle and finds himself creating his own monster, Peter Boyle, with the help of Marty Feldman ("Eyegor"), Teri Garr and Cloris Leachman as the creepy Frau BlŸcher. With perfect recreation of the Expressionistic look and feel of James Whale's black-and-white classics, Brooks' spoof pays homage to the originals while hilariously subverting them.
DIR Mel Brooks; SCR Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, based on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; PROD Michael Gruskoff. US, 1974, b&w, 105 min. Rated PG
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