The iconic scene Mel Brooks despised: “No, no, no, we can’t do that”
Mel Brooks isn’t the type of filmmaker to shy away from absurdity. He’s pretty much built his entire career on going a little farther than any other comic director will go. He doesn’t choose between a punchline, a sight gag, and slapstick; he does all three, usually at the same time. For decades, he’s been the de facto CEO of a very specific brand of humour. His work is irreverent, satirical, bursting with energy, and full of wordplay. You have to be in the right headspace to turn on one of his movies, but if you are, nothing can match him.
As you might expect from such an overwhelming talent, Brooks got his start early, performing comedy at resorts and nightclubs in upstate New York shortly after serving in World War II. He then went on to work in radio and television before transitioning into filmmaking. There wasn’t much of a space for him in that medium when he arrived, simply because there was no one who was doing the kind of humour he had to offer.
It turned out that there was a Mel Brooks-sized gap in the market after all, even if audiences and critics did not recognise it at first. When The Producers was released in 1967, it was met with a mixture of outrage, bemusement, and small pockets of glee. The more films he’s made, the bigger his fan base and influence has become.
It’s impossible to identify any of his films as the most successful or beloved, but if you were forced to rank them, Young Frankenstein would be somewhere near the top. Released in 1974, it’s a parody of classic monster movies that follows Frederick, the grandson of the famous Dr Frankenstein (played by Gene Wilder), who travels to Transylvania and picks up where his grandfather left off.
At one point in the movie, Frederick dances with his newly animated monster (Peter Boyle) to the Irving Berlin classic ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz.’ It’s one of the most memorable and replayed moments of the movie, and helps define its quirky charm. But Brooks did not want it in the picture. During a conversation with The Los Angeles Times in 2014 for the 40th anniversary of the movie, the director said that Wilder wanted the musical number “to show the prowess of the talent of the monster. I said no, no, no, we can’t do that. It will make it silly.”
The idea that Brooks would want to avoid making something ‘silly’ is about as absurd as his movies themselves. ‘Silly’ is the definition of his comedic style, but according to him, he really doesn’t see it that way. “My movies are not about jokes,” he explained. “They are about behaviour, and behaviour can be very funny.”
Eventually, Brooks agreed to shoot the scene because Wilder “never stopped annoying me.” When they saw the results, they were on the same page. “We loved it,” the director concluded.
It’s a good reminder that even auteurs like Brooks are never working in a vacuum. Even though he seems to be the sole creator of his brand of comedy, Brooks, like many so-called auteurs, has worked with a rotating ensemble for decades, and collaborators like Wilder, Rudy De Luca, Dom DeLuise, and Madeline Kahn deserve credit for helping to shape his signature style.
