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flHigh Anxiety,” with Mel Brooks, Cloris Leachman and MadelineCrossbow production, released by Twentieth Century-Fox. At the Stage 2 Theater.Rating: PG — Parental guidance suggested.By Mike DeupreeGazette staff writerMel Brooks, who scored heavily in recent years with comedy takeoffs of westerns, monster films and silent movies, takes on Alfred Hitchcock this year with predictable success.High Anxiety” is hilarious at times in typical Brooks fashion, with loads of sight gags, one-liners and bathroom humor. Of his recent filmsit’s second only to Young Frankenstein in belly laughs per minute, and it’s the slickest of the lot in itsplotting.Brooks plays Nobel Prize winner Richard Thorndyke, a psychiatrist who takes over the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous after the previous director dies under suspicious circumstances.He’s normal in almost every way, especially compared to the characters on the institute staff, such as the whip-cracking Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman), but he has a flaw that nearly proves fatal: Thorndyke suffers from high anxiety, a sort of super vertigo problem.Thorndyke soon realizes his staff is up to something, and when he’st978 is yearthe Bee«lt;By Pam FruehlingGazette staff writer■bThis is the year of the Bee Gees - that highly professional group fthat writes catchy, appealing pop J songs of no special value or pro* Sfundity.The Australian disco trio currently dominates the charts with the soundtrack from the top-fernssine movie of the moment.voiced quality and plaintive vibrato perfected by the group. Yvonne Elliman, who contributes If I Can’t Have You, sings with roughly the same style.A more polished version of More Than a Woman by Tavares and another Bee Gees hit, You Should Be Dancing, also are included.Additional music is providedframed for a murder at a San Francisco convention he enlists the aid of beautiful Victoria Brisbane (Madeline Kahn) to put things straight.High Anxiety is dedicated to Hitchcock and draws heavily from scenes out of Vertigo, Spellbound, Psycho and The Birds, among others.The key to enjoying High Anxiety, though, is whether you enjoy the Brooks style of humor, not whether you are a Hitchcock buff. Although viewers familiar with the Hitchcock method will probably get a little extra out of the movie, the story line and the gags work perfectly well without that background.A scene in which Thorndyke is pursued by a large flock of dedicatedpigeons, for example, would be funny without the references to The Birds. You don’t have to be familiar with Hitchcock’s camera techniques to appreciate a scene in which the camera is looking up through a glass coffee table at Nurse Diesel and Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman). They’re plotting against Thorndyke, but they keep setting down cups, plates and other assorted paraphernalia, forcing the camera to move frantically around seeking a clear spot to shoot through.A brilliant parody of the shower scene in Psycho does require some familiarity with the original, but who hasn’t seen, or at least heard a description, of that famous bit?High Anxiety is different from earlier Brooks films in that it has a strong story line and fits nearly all the gags into that line, instead of using the plot as a spindly framework to tie together a group of comedy skits. The result is a much smoother production than usual, one that actually provides some suspense.It’s basically Brooks, though, with his stock company of players. Korman is particularly good in this one as the simpering masochist, and Leachman puts some of the traits of Young Frankenstein’s Frau Blucher into her portrayal of the steely-eyed, shelf-bosomed Nurse Diesel. Also on the plus side is a rare appearance by Howard Morris, who goes back to Brooks’ days with Sid Caesar on television, as Thorndyke’s mentor, Professor Lilloman.
Newspaper Details
Cedar Rapids Gazette Weekly
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US
Wed, Mar 29, 1978
Page 3
Full Page
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