Accidental street encounters might have profound consequences. In late 1970s Mel Brooks was Hollywood’s Master of Parody, writer, producer, actor and director with immense talent for comedy and author of films that became classics of the genre and had smashing success at the box-office. One day on the street, an old associate asked him what his next big film will be about. In a moment of inspiration Brooks said that his next “big” film will be “the biggest film ever”, an actual attempt to cover the entire history of the world. Brooks later decided that it was a good idea and actually made the film. However, his 1981 film History of the World Part 1 turned out to be a disappointment and from that moment onwards Brooks’ career took turn for the worse.
Unlike other Brooks’ films, this one doesn’t have a coherent plot and instead consists of chapters depicting various historic eras – “Dawn of Man” (obviously inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey), Stone Age, the Old Testament, Roman Empire, Spanish Inquistion, French Revolution with the bonus that includes brief segment set in distant future. This approach allowed Brooks to experiment with different styles in different segments and play more than one character (Moses, Roman stand up philosopher Comicus, Torquemada, King Louis XVI/his double Jacques). Brooks used some of his old associates as cast – Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman. He also used composer John Morris for the soundtrack. Of all the segments, those dealing with Roman era and French Revolution are the longest, which allowed that they have something of a plot and somewhat established characters. This also allowed that some of new actors get noticed – Gregory Hines who plays Ethiopian slave in his feature film debut and Pamela Stephenson as Mademoiselle Rimbaud, dedicated daughter who stops at nothing to rescue her father from Bastille. Film also features a lot of actors and celebrities (like Hugh Heffner) in cameos, while Orson Welles occasionally provided narration.
Despite such huge collection of talents and despite Brooks’ experience, this film represents a huge disappointment. The main reason is the noticeably lower quality of humour for those who were accustomed to the stuff Brooks delivered in his classics like Frankenstein Junior or Blazing Saddles. Many of the jokes are unfunny, repetitive, take too long or, like most of uninspired Hollywood comedy today, deal with sex and various bodily function. Main source of Brooks’ problems might become apparent if this film is compared with two successful parodies that have preceded it - Life of Brian and Airplane!. Both films have the scope of their parodies narrowed (biblical epics and disaster films, respectively), which allowed their scripts to have more focus. Brooks in this film goes to broadly and often misses his targets, with Stone Age segment and controversial “Spanish Inquistion” musical number being the worst. Roman segment (which, among other things, features Playboy Playmates as Vestal Virgins) is noticeably better, just like the French Revolution segment in which Brooks uses now iconic one-liner “It’s good to be a king”. While there are many misses, there is enough hits to entertain the audience with really low expectations or those who haven’t seen Brooks’ better films.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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