Mel Brooks names the only “perfect” movie of his career: “I wouldn’t touch a second of it”
If there’s even such a thing as a perfect movie, which is entirely up for debate, the worst people to ask are the filmmakers who made them. They’ll never offer a truly unbiased opinion, but that didn’t stop Mel Brooks from saying one of his pictures was as flawless as cinema could ever hope to be.
Again, that doesn’t make it a fact. There are people out there who think The Godfather is overrated and Citizen Kane is shite, while The Emoji Movie made more money at the box office than Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Best Picture’ winner, The Shape of Water, in 2017, and it’s always been different strokes for different folks.
What can’t be argued is that Brooks is one of Hollywood’s most legendary comedic minds. If it wasn’t for a trophy cabinet overflowing with the most prestigious prizes the industry has to offer, then the towering influence he cast over future generations of comics and a filmography boasting at least three stone-cold classics, if not more, is evidence enough that he deserves his place among the pantheon.
If someone doesn’t find him or his work funny, then that’s perfectly OK. However, to say that he’s not one of the most creative minds to ever step foot on a Broadway stage or a film set is ludicrous. Some of his opinions are questionable, particularly his belief that the derided Solarbabies made money, but if he thinks one of his movies is perfect, then why argue?
It definitely helps that it’s one of his best, because if he suggested Life Stinks was the pinnacle of his contributions to the art form, then serious questions would be asked. The Producers and Blazing Saddles helped transform mainstream comedy by pushing buttons and breaking taboos that had been left well alone, but he didn’t call either of them perfect.
Thankfully, it isn’t Dracula: Dead and Loving It, even if that movie contains his personal favourite scene from his career. Ask anyone familiar with Brooks’ back catalogue which one of his movies is the best, and Young Frankenstein is the third usual suspect alongside the two mentioned above that come up the most often, and he’d wholeheartedly agree.
When Kevin Lagrandeur asked him if there was anything he’d change about the 1974 caper or do differently with the benefit of hindsight, Brooks scoffed at the notion: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect,” he said. “I wouldn’t touch a second of it.”
This being a Brooks production, though, others certainly would have. The Producers and Blazing Saddles battled against the grubby fingerprints of studio interference, and the EGOT-winning veteran acknowledged that, for a while, Young Frankenstein was taking a while to be whipped into shape.
“Sometime at the end of November 1974, I showed the first rough-cut to some people,” he recalled. “They were just people from the lot, all kinds of secretaries and people in various jobs. I even got all the secretaries from the suits, from the big executives. About two-thirds of it was good, and one-third was terrible. I said, ‘Thank you for coming. You have just seen a 200-minute failure of a movie.'”
The writer and director informed the gathered throng that “he’d taken copious notes on what you liked and didn’t like, and you’re going to come back, and you are going to see a 90-minute, big-hit success.” Technically, it was 105 minutes, but Brooks did more than that: as he said himself, he thinks he achieved perfection.
