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Created Mar 24, 2013 04:25PM PST • Edited Mar 24, 2013 04:25PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Although Mel Brooks would make one more consistently funny movie 10 years later with “Spaceballs”, “High Anxiety” ended a remarkable 9 year streak of comedy classics that was marred only by the bold but not terribly funny “Silent Movie” the year before.

   This time Brooks aims his unique comic sensibility at Hitchcock, brilliantly spoofing the famous shower scene from “Psycho” and offering a clever, quite Brooksian twist on “The Birds”

   But this is hardly a classic. Brooks is unable to rein in the accesses of his repertory, with Harvey Korman doing schtick that wouldn’t even have passed muster on “The Carol Burnett Show”

   Still, when it’s funny “High Anxiety” is hilarious. And it’s worth noting that this is the last Mel Brooks movie to feature the sublime Madeline Kahn, who is quite terrific as the typical beleaguered but stronger than she realized Hitchcock heroine.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   The acting is not the best thing about this. The writing and the directing are. Still, Cloris Leachman is a lot of fun to watch and Brooks comes as close to playing it straight as he ever has. And it’s worth noting that this is the only Mel Brooks movie to actually star Mel Brooks. And I don’t mean playing a Yiddish Indian chief in 7 minutes of “Blazing Saddles” either. Okay :)

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Very good production with every effort to make it feel like a Hitchcock movie, which works most of the time.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.4

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.4

23. Biological Surreal 2.4

24. Physical Surreal 2.4