The 1959 movie masterpiece Mel Brooks can’t stand: “I mean, it can’t compare”
Most legends would be happy with their lot if they were known, loved, and constantly celebrated as one of the sharpest comedic minds in cinema history, but not Mel Brooks.
It’s understandable for anyone to want more, but when he’s won more awards than most, been around the industry longer than most, and made a seismic impact on mainstream comedy that continues to influence and inspire to this day, Brooks doesn’t have too much to be pissed off about.
He’s won an Academy Award, four Primetime Emmys, three Grammys, three Tonys, a Laurence Olivier Award, and, as you’d expect from someone knocking on the door of 100 years old, almost every lifetime achievement award that’s worth having. Despite all of that, one thing continues to stick in his craw.
There aren’t many people who can compete with Brooks to be named as Hollywood’s ultimate living legend, which comes with the territory when the competition has a habit of dying off, with Clint Eastwood, John Williams, and Julie Andrews among his very few 90-something peers, in terms of awards, adulation, acclaim, and impact.
And yet, Brooks still can’t place his competitive spirit to one side. If you ask him to name the single funniest movie that’s ever been produced, he’ll say it’s Blazing Saddles, which he wrote and directed. However, if any person or organisation disagrees with him, he’ll tell them that they’re wrong.
“I think the AFI number one all-time comedy is Some Like It Hot, which I like,” he explained. “I thought it was really terrific. But it’s certainly not half as funny as Blazing Saddles. I mean, it can’t compare. When you limit your lists to comedies, Blazing Saddles should be first, second, third, and fourth, and then maybe Young Frankenstein should be fifth. That’s the way it should roll.”
Billy Wilder’s seminal 1959 comedy, which Brooks has pointed to as having the finest finale in the genre’s silver-screen history, was named by the American Film Institute as the funniest film to ever emerge from the United States in June 2000. Brooks’ highest-ranked picture was Blazing Saddles, in fifth, with The Producers in 11th, and Young Frankenstein in 13th.
Normally, having three movies in the top 13 would be worn as a badge of honour, with Wilder and Howard Hawks the only other directors to have more than one entry in the top 20, and they still had one less each than Brooks did, but because Blazing Saddles didn’t take the top spot, he was indignant.
Not only that, but he even held a grudge because of it. “Between me and you, you can print it, that’s why I didn’t do the AFI Man of the Year thing for a long time,” the EGOT winner announced. Some Like It Hot overshadowed Blazing Saddles in 2000, and having been so annoyed by the call, Brooks refused to accept the organisation’s lifetime achievement award until 2013, which is as stubborn as it is spiteful.
