The Mel Brooks movie Alfred Hitchcock helped to write
Although each of them are held up as being among the best ever in their chosen fields, the nail-biting thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock have very little in common with the riotous comedies of Mel Brooks.
Whereas the former is one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema that continually reinvented the medium from a narrative, technical, and artistic perspective through a string of all time classics that delivered propulsive thrills and relentless tension, the latter has always placed a much larger focus on making people laugh.
An actor, comedian, filmmaker, songwriter, author, and playwright, Brooks is one of the most multi-talented creative minds the industry has ever seen, one just as capable working in film and television as they are onstage and on the printed page, with his status as one of just 19 EGOT winners in history a testament to his accomplished versatility.
However, when the time came for Brooks to co-write, direct, produce, and star in 1977’s High Anxiety – which parodied many of Hitchcock’s most successful films – there was only one person on his mind when it came time for the early drafts of the screenplay to be poured over by someone very familiar with the machinations of the labyrinthine thriller.
“I did a movie called High Anxiety. I sent a rough draft of it to Hitchcock,” Brooks told The Daily Beast. “I called him and I said, ‘I do genres. I do space. I do Westerns. I’m going to do High Anxiety about your stuff'”. As someone with a mischievous streak of their own, he was more than happy to lend an assist.
“He said, ‘Come over’, and he helped me write it – he didn’t take credit – and he became a pal of mine”, Brooks continued. “He watched it. At the end of it, he got up and he left”. Fortunately, Hitchcock’s abrupt departure didn’t mean he wasn’t won over by High Anxiety. In fact, the opposite turned out to be true.
The next day, Brooks discovered a bottle of wine on his desk along with a note urging him to “have no anxiety over High Anxiety“, with Hitchcock labelling it as “a wonderful film”. He may have gone uncredited for his contributions to the screenplay, but there was a dedication to the ‘Master of Suspense’ in the credits.
The scene parodying The Birds was even added at Hitchcock’s urging after he told Brooks that lampooning his avian nightmare would be a worthwhile gag. “If they shit all over you, I mean, it’s going to be funny” was his reasoning, which was enough to convince Brooks that High Anxiety should broaden its scope to poke fun at even more of the Hitchcockian oeuvre.
