“The Mel Brooks Collection” Blu-ray Review
Although the quality of his movies can vary wildly, there are few directors out there with the resilience of Mel Brooks. His films have spanned generations and spanned nearly three decades worth of entertainment with some of the best, brightest, and funniest talent in Hollywood. Although you don’t see much of him anymore (aside from the rather disastrous attempt at a Spaceballs animated series), his catalog speaks for itself and this new collection set on Blu-ray is a fantastic representation of his works (but not a complete one…there are a couple missing). So if you happen to pick up this set or receive it this holiday season and have yet to experience the brilliance that is Mel Brooks…then, man, you’re in for an incredible treat.
Synopsis
Best known as a creator of broad film farces and uproarious parodies, jack-of-all-trades Mel Brooks has been entertaining audiences for years with his wacky and absurdist humor. Now just in time for the holidays, the king of comedies brilliant work is available for the first time in high definition in The Mel Brooks Collection on Blu-ray Disc, debuting December 15 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Embark on a hilarious adventure over and over again as the ultimate gift set debuts with some of Brooks’ best films including Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety, History Of The World Part I, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, Silent Movie, Spaceballs, To Be Or Not To Be, The Twelve Chairs and Young Frankenstein.
How does one tackle what is essentially the life’s work of Mel Brooks? Well I guess you could point out that they left out one of his more prolific works (The Producers) and one of his worst works (Dracula Dead and Loving It) from the set for whatever reason, but instead we’ll focus on the absolutely groundbreaking and hilarious films that are included here. While I grew up with Mel Brooks films getting a lot of playtime in my house, I hadn’t seen all of them (notably History of the World – Part I) until recently. This set even boasted a few I hadn’t seen (mainly his earlier works, like The Twelve Chairs and High Anxiety), but for the most part it was treading familiar territory.
Honestly it was nothing short of a delight to go through each of these films again (or for the first time). I’d seen most of them all on worn out VHS or bad cable signal TV airings before, so the Blu-ray renditions were rather eye-opening (although they all aren’t impeccable). At the same time some of these films I’d only seen once or twice and watching a Mel Brooks film only once is to it a great disservice; I watched Robin Hood – Men in Tights recently for the eleventh or twelfth time and I still pick up on jokes or looks on characters faces that I’d never seen before. Spaceballs, however, I’ve gone over with a fine tooth combed and I’m confident there isn’t anything in that movie that I haven’t seen.
Blazing Saddles I’m also quite familiar with, although most of my viewings of that were as a kid (it was the one R-rated film my parents let me watch) and a lot of the humor and dialogue in that film is so adult that it’s hard to pick up on most of that when you are young. Young Frankenstein was a film I’d only recently seen with its Blu-ray release late last year; truth be told I didn’t fall in love with the film immediately, but like a lot of Mel Brooks jokes they grow on you and only get better with repeat viewings. And, of course, History of the World – Part I is as hilarious as the first time I saw it and my only regret with that film is that they didn’t make another one.
The new films to me in this set, The Twelve Chairs, Silent Movie, To Be or Not to Be, and High Anxiety, were all hilarious in their own right as well. But, again, like a Mel Brooks production, they take some getting used to and this is the reason why I suspect that Mel Brooks filmography is largely rated poorly on sites like IMDb. People rate the film after one viewing and it often takes more than that to really “get” his films and the messages that they actually contain. Trust me—there is one, it’s just buried under a pile of jokes that sometimes misfire (on first glance, anyway—you’ll likely later realize they were all perfectly timed). The films have their fair share of elements that haven’t aged well, but overall this is a remarkable and entertaining collection. If you don’t own these films then do yourself a favor and pick this set up—it’s relatively cheap ($90ish…around $10 a film, which isn’t bad considering the majority of these you can’t pick up on Blu-ray by themselves) and comes in a very nice package, as I’ll discuss in a bit. As is these nine films come Highly Recommended.
The Blu-ray
Although we received a DVD set of a similar nature years back (minus Spaceballs), Fox clearly opted to go for a similar treatment for the Blu-ray format. With a lot of these films not being available anywhere else on Blu-ray (only Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs and Blazing Saddles are on the format currently), this is a must-have for Mel Brooks fans as it offers up the first high-def glance at these films in…well, ever. Plus there are a decent amount of extras, not all new of course, that weren’t available on the individual releases of the films on DVD prior.
The set itself arrives in a handsome heavy-duty slipcase that houses two books inside. One book (the white one) houses the nine discs for the set inside cut-out cardboard slits. The other is a 120-page hardcover book that explores “the professional and personal life of this titan of comedy.” It’s a really well done tribute with scads of images from the various films included on this set, including some nice behind-the-scenes shots as well. Granted it’s a bit odd to throw a whole book into the set, but it’s a very nice touch considering, at best, we could’ve gotten a “bonus” disc that was barely worthwhile. Overall the set is a very nice presentation and will look great on anyone’s collectible packaging movie shelf. Assuming you have one of those, anyway.
And now the big question: the transfers. All of the films boast an AVC encoded transfer, aside from Disc 1 in the set. In fact, Blazing Saddles is the odd duck of the collection, since it was originally a Warner Home Video release and as such doesn’t have anything new to show for itself. It should be noted that discs 1 – 3 ( Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs and Young Frankenstein) are identical to their previously released brethren. Nothing has been added or changed (at least to my knowledge—of those three I don’t own Blazing Saddles, so I couldn’t do a direct comparison…but all the specs match up from what I can find online).
It should go without saying that the newer the film, the better the transfer. I will say that all of the films look good for what they are and I honestly expected nothing less from Fox. There are flaws, such as print noise/damage on The Twelve Chairs or the well-documented grain storm that is Young Frankenstein, but honestly they are the best these films will likely ever look. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice Men in Tights looked; I found the DVD transfer of that film to be kind of ugly at times, but it’s nice and clear here. There is some blocking and washed out colors at times, but all in all it’s a very solid set in terms of presentation.
And the audio? Again, Blazing Saddles aside, the films all boast DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks. Overkill? Hell yes it is. A lot of these films just don’t require anything near what the DTS-HD codec is capable of, but Fox being the brilliant company that they are…they’ve included it anyway. On films like Spaceballs, History of the World and Men in Tights it’s a lot more prominent with the films containing a great deal of action in them. In others like The Twelve Chairs or High Anxiety, the mixes are a lot more subdued. All of the films feature crystal clear front channel packages, but it’s rare for most of them to travel to the surrounds; when they do some of the sound effects are dated and lack any kind of super strong LFE output. I don’t think a lot of effort was put into remastering these films to any great extent…but they still look and sound great for their age and what they are (comedies).
The set breakdown is as follows:
Disc One:
• Blazing Saddles – feature film
• Additional Scenes
• Scene-Specific Commentary by Mel Brooks
• 2 Documentaries
o Back in the Saddle
o Intimate Portrait: Madeline Kahn (Excerpt)
• Black Bart: 1975 Pilot Episode Of The Proposed TV Series Spinoff
• Theatrical Trailer
Disc Two:
• Spaceballs – feature film
• Commentary by Mel Brooks
• Spaceballs: The Documentary
• In Conversation: Mel Brooks & Thomas Meehan
• John Candy: Comic Spirit
• Watch the movie in Ludicrous Speed
• Still Galleries
• Film Flubs
• Storyboards-to-Film Comparison
Disc Three:
• Young Frankenstein – feature film
• Commentary by Mel Brooks
• Inside The Lab: Secret Formulas in the Making of Young Frankenstein
• Deleted Scenes
• It’s Alive! Creating A Monster Classic
• Making FrankenSense of Young Frankenstein
• Transylvanian Lullaby: The Music of John Morris
• The Franken-Track: A Monstrous Conglomeration of Trivia – Trivia Track
• Blucher Button
• Outtakes
• Isolated Score Track (DTS MA)
Disc Four:
• High Anxiety – feature film
• Hitchcock and Mel: Spoofing the Master of Suspense
• The “Am I Very, Very Nervous?” Test
o Dr. Thorndyke’s Ink Blot Test
o How Anxious Am I?
• Don’t Get Anxious! The Trivia of Hitchcock
– Trivia Track
• Isolated Score Track (DTS MA)
Disc Five:
• History of the World Part 1 – feature film
• Musical Mel: Inventing “The Inquisition”
• Making History: Mel Brooks on Creating the World
• The Real History of the World – Trivia Track
• Isolated Score Track (DTS MA)
Disc Six:
• Robin Hood: Men In Tights – feature film
• Funny Men In Tights: Three Generations of Comedy
• HBO Special: Robin Hood: Men In Tights –
“The Legend Had It Coming”
• LaserDisc Commentary by Mel Brooks
• Isolated Score Track (DTS MA)
Disc Seven:
• Silent Movie – feature film
• Silent Laughter: The Reel Inspirations of Silent Movie
• Speak Up! Historical Hollywood – Trivia Track
Disc Eight:
• To Be Or Not To Be – feature film
• Brooks and Bancroft: A Perfect Pair
• How Serious Can Mel Brooks Really Get?
• Profiles of Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning
• To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Trivia! – Trivia Track
• Isolated Score Track (DTS MA)
Disc Nine:
• Twelve Chairs – feature film
Having only owned the first three films of the set and Men in Tights on DVD, I can’t really compare the entire set to their previous releases, but I do know that (obviously) the isolated DTS-HD MA score tracks are new to some of the films. In the case of Men in Tights, however, I have to applaud Fox for porting over that old LaserDisc commentary track. The DVD edition was sorely lacking anything in the extras department (just an old HBO special…which is brought over again for this release) and to see that film get a boost is nice. Even if many don’t like it for some reason.
The remaining films have an overabundance of trivia and “games” to play, but overall it’s a solid set nonetheless. Although the complete barebones Twelve Chairs release is a bit curious. In any case this is a Highly Recommended set and one that will no doubt make many a Mel Brooks fan happy this holiday season.
The Mel Brooks Collection arrives on Blu-ray on December 15th.