The first movie that Mel Brooks directed was this uproarious backstage comedy, in which a conman producer (Zero Mostel) tempts a mild-mannered accountant to cooperate on a massive swindle, in the form of a guaranteed flop: a paean to Hitler by a mad former German soldier. Yet pitfalls await: Can they raise the money needed? …
Month: September 2021
Spaceballs (1987)
Earlier this summer, to celebrate Mel Brooks’s 95th birthday, we watched two of his movies. The first was his parody of Star Wars, Spaceballs, a delightful and spot-on skewering of its target. Memorable characters abound, including John Candy as the Wookie-like Barf, Rick Moranis as the not-so-menacing Dark Helmet, and Brooks himself as President Skroob, …
Alias the Bad Man (1931)
Texas Ranger Ken Neville (Ken Maynard) poses as killer Red River Gantz in a bid to capture the murderers of his father (Lafe McKee) and another rancher, Silas Warner (Robert Homans). He’s aided in his work by another Ranger, Repeater (Irving Bacon), but Warner’s too-trusting daughter Mary (Virginia Brown Faire), whose careless words had led …
El jinete sin cabeza (1957)
A man who wears a black mask that covers his whole head — making him appear headless in some views — battles a secret society whose members where monks’ robes and skull masks, and which murders those in the area who try to sell their ranches. At the same time, a justice of the peace …