Viking Night: High Anxiety
By Bruce Hall
June 22, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs tend to immediately spring from the lips of others when this subject comes up, and with good reason. Those are three of Brooks’ most popular films and, in case you’re wondering, I have precisely and scientifically ranked them in order of funny (you’re welcome). But when you look at Brooks’ lesser-known titles, you’ll find names that only come up between dedicated movie geeks. Sandwiched between the relatively obscure Silent Movie and the seldom-mentioned History of the World, Part I, High Anxiety doesn’t get a lot of love.
I know very few people who’ve actually seen it, and those who say they have are usually lying because they feel embarrassed. The rest simply say, “I hear it’s pretty good, though,” as if that is somehow the same thing. I can confess to having lied about many things, and I’m here to tell you that Pretending and Doing are not, in fact, the same thing. I’m a pretty solid Mel Brooks fan, but I’m not too big to admit that I hadn’t seen High Anxiety either, until now (although I’ve always heard it’s pretty good). I’m not sure what happened; maybe I saw Dracula: Dead and Loving It and just...snapped.
Walked away. Went off the Grid. Grew a beard and was forced to fight a clone of myself, because my life plays out like a Marvel feature. Nonetheless I finally came back around to Mr. Brooks, and after recently revisiting Young Frankenstein, I decided to venture into uncharted waters. It’s a good thing I did, because High Anxiety is not quite the movie I was expecting. That’s weird, too, because I knew exactly what it was going in - a love letter to Alfred Hitchcock. High Anxiety lovingly parodies the Master of Suspense from beginning to end, and it leaves very few stones unturned.
I’d forgotten this, and was at first a little put off by the idea. Brooks has made some of my favorite movies, but the few bad ones he’s made were bad in ways that I’d forgotten a story COULD be bad (RIP, Leslie Nielsen). Even way back in 1977, Mel Brooks would already have been the 348th filmmaker to parody or pay homage to “Hitch,” and we all know that 75 percent of all satire is brain meltingly bad. Sure, Brooks has a great batting average, but when you look at the industry as a whole, for every Blazing Saddles, there’s at least ten Meet the Spartans. Thankfully, another universal truth on which I can hang my hat is that the best satire often comes from a place of love, rather than hatred.
If that’s the case with High Anxiety, Mel Brooks has a serious man-crush on Big Al.
Brooks himself plays lead in this one, speaking of anxiety. Part of me loves seeing the man in his own films but unfortunately, his appearances are distracting and awkward as often as they’re hilarious. When they don’t work, they’re often the weakest parts of the film. I was pleased to find out that as Dr. Richard Thorndyke, Brooks’ performance is as restrained as the story itself, which is less over the top than History of the World, if slightly less ambitious than Silent Movie. But let’s get back to Dr. Thorndyke.
The good Doctor has just been hired to head the prestigious Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very Very Nervous, after the previous director died under uncertain circumstances. There, he meets with his eccentric staff, the seedy Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman), the neurotic Dr. Wentworth (Dick Van Patten), and the pallid, living horror that is Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman). Almost immediately upon arriving, Thorndyke begins receiving strange messages from someone claiming all is not right at the Institute. This doesn’t sit well with Thorndyke, who is not only a consummate professional but also suffers from what they used to call “high anxiety.”
These days, it’s just called “anxiety,” and in today’s world, someone would probably boycott this film the way it makes fun of Thorndyke’s exaggerated condition. Thank God this film was made in the ‘70s, I guess, because the Doctor’s condition serves as a plot device that propels him from one odd development after another. The Institute seems to take on a lot of patients, but none of them are ever allowed to leave. Wentworth seems deathly afraid of...something. And there’s something sick and wrong happening with Montague and Diesel.
I don’t dare describe it, because to do so would be to recall it and to recall it would be to enter a world of madness.
But the real story here isn’t the story itself, so much as what it affectionately lifts from Hitchcock's extensive library of thrills and chills. The most significant scenes and situations in the film mimic, or are at least reminiscent of, memorable moments from one Hitchcock classic or another. If you’re a fan of the Master, you’ll probably pee yourself with delight at the number of winks, nods and in-jokes. It would be like watching ME watch re-runs of Red Dwarf with my college friends. Of course by that I mean there would be laughing, drinking, farting, and the eating of rotisserie chicken with bare hands.
If you’re not that familiar with Hitchcock, I’m happy to report that the story - and the humor - hold up well enough on their own. I admit to having seen only a few of Hitch’s films, but they were all classics, and I enjoyed them all. I cannot stress enough how suspenseful I found Rear Window, even though it’s about a guy in a wheelchair who spends two hours gawking at his neighbors through pair of binoculars.
Of course, even if you’ve never seen any of the films referenced, odds are you’ll recognize several iconic scenes being parodied, and you’ll laugh anyway. That’s how pervasive Hitchcock’s influence was on cinema for many years; even if you never saw his work, you not only knew the most famous scenes, you probably even knew the context. You’ve seen the shower scene in Psycho lampooned a hundred times, but rarely have you seen it done this well, and it’s the only place you can see it with a middle aged Jewish guy on the wrong side of the curtain.
I’m not sure this quite ranks with Brooks’ most beloved work, if only because the humor here is somewhat muted - at least by Brooksian standards. It’s consistently funny, but there are more hearty chuckles than belly laughs. The best moments, while they’re not likely to last you a lifetime, still manage to land well. And of course if you’re a Hitchcock fan, know that Hitchcock himself (who reportedly assisted with the screenplay) loved High Anxiety so much, he sent Brooks enough vintage wine to drown a water buffalo.
I’m not sure I liked it THAT much, but I’m more than happy to say that I came away more than happy. So do me a favor the next time someone asks you about High Anxiety, would you?
Tell them you’ve heard it was “good.” And them you heard it from me.