Overlong, wildly uneven, gimmicky too a fault, and often laugh out loud funny with a mix of jokes that range from the crude to the sublimely clever to the surprisingly sentimental, The History of the World, Part I is the ultimate Mel Brooks films.
Narrated by Orson Welles and featuring five historical stories and a collection of coming attractions, The History of the World Part I follows man from his caveman origins to the French Revolution and the thread that ties it all together is that humanity always screws up but still finds a way to survive. Moses (Mel Brooks) might drop and break one of the three tablets listing the 15 Commandments but he’s still able to present the other ten. Stand-up philosopher Comicus (Mel Brooks) might make the mistake of poking fun at the weight of Emperor Nero (Dom DeLuise) but he still makes his escape with Josephus (Gregory Hines), Swiftus (Ron Carey), and Miriam the Vestal Virgin (Mary-Margaret Humes) and ends up serving as the waiter at the Last Supper. (“Jesus!”) The Spanish Inquisition may have been a catastrophe but it also gave Torquemada (Mel Brooks) a chance to show off his performance skills. The French Revolution may have been a bloodbath but the future still held promise. Ask for a miracle and he’ll show up as a white horse named Miracle, no matter what era of history you’re living in.
The humor is very Mel Brooks. During the Roman Empire sequence, Madeline Kahn plays Empress Nympho. Jackie Mason, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Spike Milligan, Jan Murray, Sammy Shores, Shecky Greene, Sid Caesar, Henny Youngman, and Hugh Hefner all make cameo appearances. Carl Reiner is the voice of God. John Hurt plays Jesus. The film ends with the promise of a sequel that will feature “Jews in Space.” Not every joke lands. The entire caveman sequence feels forced. But when the film works — like during The Inquisition production number — it’s hard not get caught up in its anything-goes style. The entire Roman Empire sequence is probably more historically accurate than the typical Hollywood Roman epic. That’s especially true of Dom DeLuise’s naughty performance as Emperor Nero.
Mel Brooks is 99 years old today and he says that he has at least one more film to give us, a sequel to Spaceballs. I’m looking forward to it! I’m also looking forward to rewatching and enjoying all of the films that he’s already given us. The History of the World, Part I may not have initially enjoyed the critical acclaim of his earlier films but, in all of its anarchistic glory, it’s still pure Mel Brooks.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!
Welcome aboard. Don’t expect much from your cruise this week.
Episode 2.14 “Julie Falls Hard / Double Wedding / The Dummies”
(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on December 16th, 1978)
Agck! It’s the most horrifying episode in the history of the Love Boat!
Your eyes do not deceive you. There are indeed two ventriloquists on this week’s cruise. Married entertainers Patti Harmon (Ruth Buzzi) and Michael Harmon (Sid Caesar) have been hired to amuse the ship’s passengers. Unfortunately, they’ve recently separated. Patti thinks that Michael is incapable of expressing his emotions unless he’s carrying around his dummy. And it turns out that she’s right because Michael really does carry that dummy around with him everywhere and he has frequent conversations with it. Even when Michael inevitably apologizes for being a bad husband and asks Patti for another chance, he has to use the dummy to do it.
Seriously, it’s creepy! I mean, everything works out in the end. Michael and Patti decide to give their marriage a second chance and their dummies end up kissing as well. But seriously, ventriloquist dummys are just weird. Have you seen that episode of The Twilight Zone where the guy tries to switch one dummy out for another so the original dummy gets mad and destroys his replacement? Have you seen the classic Anthony Hopkins film, Magic? CREEPY!
Of course, this episode features not just the scariest story in Love Boat history. It also features the stupidest. Two twins (Cyb Barnstable and Trish Barnstable) board the cruise with their fiancés (played by David Nelson and Fred Travelena). No one can tell the twins apart! Not even Isaac!
Anyway, the twins worry that they might be making a mistake because it seems like each one is marrying a man with the opposite personality. The twin who likes to stay up late is engaged to the man who goes to bed early. The twin who likes to be responsible and level-headed is engaged to man who is wild and unpredictable. So, when the twins disembark the boat so that they can get married in Mexico, they decide to switch places on their wedding day. But then when the twins return to the boat with their new husbands, they decide that they made a mistake so they switch back. They can do that because they’re twins! Seriously, that’s the entire story.
Bleh! This was so stupid. Even writing about it was painful.
Finally, Julie’s in love!
Jack Chenault (Tony Roberts) is taking the cruise with his two young daughters and, when he sees Julie, it’s love at first sight. The daughters wants their Dad to marry Julie as well. One of the daughters is played by a very young Melora Hardin, who would grow up to play Jan Levinson on The Office.
After knowing Julie for one day, Michael announces that he’s in love with her and he wants her to come live with him in Alaska. Julie is tempted but ultimately, she can’t leave her life on the boat behind. Jack is heart-broken but Julie promises to see him the next time that she’s in Alaska. So, I imagine we will never hear about Jack again.
This third storyline wasn’t bad. Especially when compared to the other two, it was actually sweet and rather touching. It helps that Tony Roberts gave a convincing performance Jack. That said, asking someone to marry you after only knowing them for one day? Unless you’re a young king looking to legitimize the Treaty of Troyes, that’s never a good idea.
This week’s cruise was not a good one. Hopefully, next week’s will be less scary and less dumb.
In 1981, director Hal Needham and star Burt Reynolds had a surprise hit with The Cannonball Run. Critics hated the film about a race from one end of America to the other but audiences flocked to watch Burt and a group of familiar faces ham it up while cars crashed all around them. The original Cannonball Run is a goofy and gloriously stupid movie and it can still be fun to watch. The sequel, on the other hand…
When the sequel begins, the Cannonball Run has been discontinued. The film never explains why the race is no longer being run but then again, there’s a lot that the sequel doesn’t explain. King Abdul ben Falafel (Ricardo Montalban, following up The Wrath of Khan with this) wants his son, The Sheik (Jamie Farr, returning from the first film) to win the Cannonball so he puts up a million dollars and announces that the race is back on. Problem solved.
With the notable exceptions of Farrah Fawcett, Roger Moore, and Adrienne Barbeau, almost everyone from the first film returns to take another shot at the race. Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise are back. Jack Elam returns as the crazy doctor, though he’s riding with the Sheik this time. Jackie Chan returns, riding with Richard “Jaws” Kiel. Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. return, playing barely disguised versions of themselves. They’re joined by the surviving members of the Rat Pack. Yes, Frank Sinatra is in this thing. He plays himself and, from the way his scenes are shot, it’s obvious they were all filmed in a day and all the shots of people reacting to his presence were shot on another day. Shirley MacClaine also shows up, fresh from having won an Oscar. She plays a fake nun who rides with Burt and Dom. Burt, of course, had a previous chance to co-star with Shirley but he turned down Terms of Endearment so he could star in Stroker Ace. Cannonball Run II finally gave the two a chance to act opposite each other, though no one would be winning any Oscars for appearing in this film.
Say what you will about Hal Needham as a director, he was obviously someone who cultivated a lot of friendships in Hollywood because this film is jam-packed with people who I guess didn’t have anything better to do that weekend. Telly Savalas, Michael V. Gazzo, Henry Silva, Abe Vigoda, and Henry Silva all play gangsters. Jim Nabors plays Homer Lyle, a country-fried soldier who is still only a private despite being in his 50s. Catherine Bach and Susan Anton replace Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman as the two racers who break traffic laws and hearts with impunity. Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Foster Brooks, Sid Caesar, Arte Johnson, Mel Tillis, Doug McClure, George “Goober” Lindsey, and more; Needham found room for all of them in this movie. He even found roles for Tony Danza and an orangutan. (Marilu Henner is also in the movie so I guess Needham was watching both Taxi and Every Which Way But Loose while casting the film.) Needham also came up with a role for Charles Nelson Reilly, who is cast as a mafia don in Cannonball Run II. His name is also Don so everyone refers to him as being “Don Don.” That’s just a typical example of the humor that runs throughout Cannonball Run II. If you thought the humor of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was too subtle and cerebral, Cannonball Run II might be right up your alley.
The main problem with Cannonball Run II is that there’s not much time spent on the race, which is strange because that’s the main reason why anyone would want to watch this movie. The race itself doesn’t start until 45 minutes into this 108 minute film and all the racers are quickly distracted by a subplot about the Mafia trying to kidnap the Sheik. Everyone stops racing so that Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. can disguise themselves as belly dancers to help rescue the Sheik. By the time that’s all been taken care of, there’s only 10 minutes left for everyone to race across the country. After a montage of driving scenes and a cartoon of an arrow stretching across the nation (the cartoon was animated by Ralph Bakshi!), we discover who won the Cannonball and then it’s time for a montage of Burt and Dom blowing their lines and giggling. Needham always ended his films with a montage of everyone screwing up a take and it’s probably one of his most lasting cinematic contributions. Every blooper reel that’s ever been included as a DVD or Blu-ray extra owes a debt of gratitude to Hal Needham. Watching people blow their lines can be fun if you’ve just watched a fun movie but watching Burt and Dom amuse themselves after sitting through Cannonball Run II is just adding insult to injury. It feels less like they’re laughing at themselves and more like they’re laughing at you for being stupid enough to sit through a movie featuring Tony Danza and an orangutan.
The dumb charm of the first Cannonball Run is nowhere to be found in this sequel and, though the film made a profit, the box office numbers were still considered to be a disappointment when compared to the other films that Reynolds and Needham collaborated on. Along with Stroker Ace, this is considered to be one of the films that ended Reynolds’s reign as a top box office attraction. Cannonball Run II was also the final feature film to feature Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. This could be considered the final Rat Pack film, though I wouldn’t say that too loudly.
Cannonball Run II is a disappointment on so many levels. It’s hard to believe that the same director who did Smokey and the Bandit andHooper could be responsible for the anemic stunts and chases found in this movie. The cast may have had a good time but the audience is left bored. Stick with the first Cannonball Run.
So what could a Jewish kid from Chicago possibly know about life among rural Southerners or the black experience in Watts? Probably not a whole heck of a lot, but if that kid’s name is Aaron Ruben, there’s one thing he does know – funny! For Aaron Ruben was the producer/writer behind such classic sitcoms as THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and SANFORD AND SON, who used his comedic talents behind the scenes keep America laughing while glued to the boob tube for over forty years!
Milton Berle in his radio days
Ruben was born on Chicago’s West Side in 1914, and after service in WWII began his show biz career writing for comic Wally Brown on Dinah Shore’s radio show. He was soon hired by Burns & Allen for their program, and then wrote for Milton Berle alongside Nat Hiken, who would play an important role in Ruben’s later career…
THE CHEAP DETECTIVE could easily be subtitled “Neil Simon Meets MAD Magazine”. The playwright and director Robert Moore had scored a hit with 1976’s MURDER BY DEATH, spoofing screen PI’s Charlie Chan, Sam Spade, and Nick & Nora Charles, and now went full throttle in sending up Humphrey Bogart movies. Subtle it ain’t, but film buffs will get a kick out of the all-star cast parodying THE MALTESE FALCON, CASABLANCA , TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, and THE BIG SLEEP .
Peter Falk does his best Bogie imitation as Lou Peckinpaugh, as he did in the previous film. When Lou’s partner Floyd Merkle is killed, Lou finds himself in a FALCON-esque plot involving some rare Albanian Eggs worth a fortune. Madeline Kahn , John Houseman, Dom De Luise , and Paul Williams stand in for Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Elisha Cook Jr, respectively, and they milk it for every…
So, the whole reason that I watched Grease last week was so I would be prepared to watch the 1982 sequel Grease 2 over the weekend. As I’ve mentioned many times on this site, I absolutely hate Grease and I know what you’re probably asking yourself:
“But Lisa, if you hate Grease so much, why did you want to see Grease 2?”
Well, there’s a very good answer to that question but I’m not going to reveal it. I’m going to encourage you to learn to love the mystery. For whatever reason, I wanted to watch Grease 2. Perhaps it was because I’ve heard that Grease 2 is the worst sequel ever made. I really didn’t see how that was possible. How, I wondered, could a film be any worse than the original Grease?
And, so, I watched Grease 2 on Netflix and yes, it was really, really bad. But you know what? It was so bad that it became almost compulsively watchable. Unlike the first Grease, which is full of slow spots, Grease 2 is oddly exciting in its mediocrity. I watched much of it in open-mouthed horror, wondering if things could possibly get any worse. And, with each scene, it did get worse. It was so overwhelmingly and shamelessly bad and so thoroughly misguided that, strangely enough, I really want to rewatch it.
Grease 2 takes place in 1961. There’s a whole new gang of students at Rydell High! Well, actually, Frenchy (Didi Conn) has returned. You may remember that, in the previous film, Frenchy dropped out of high school and went to beauty school. (She was also visited by Satan, who came to her disguised as the Teen Angel.) But now Frenchy is back, trying to pass a chemistry class so she can … well, I’m not really sure what the whole deal with Frenchy was. I imagine that Didi Conn was probably free for a weekend.
The T-bird and the Pink Ladies are still around but they have a whole new membership. The head of the Pink Ladies is Stephanie Zinone (played, in her film debut, by Michelle Pfeiffer). Her boyfriend, Johnny Nogorelli (Adrian Zmed), is the chain-smoking leader of the T-birds. Actually, Johnny is now her ex-boyfriend. He cheated on her over the summer.
And there’s a new boy at Rydell! He’s originally from England and he’s Sandy’s cousin! His name is Michael Carrington (superhandsome Maxwell Caulfield, who is perhaps fated to always be best known for playing Rex Manning in Empire Records) and, when we first meet him, he’s getting off a school bus and he’s wearing a suit! Michael really likes Stephanie but you have to be a T-bird if you’re going to date a Pink Lady and…
AGCK!
Sorry, that was a primal scream. Trying to describe the plot of Grease 2 inspires a lot of primal screams.
Anyway, this is a film is also a musical but apparently, none of the original Grease composers were involved with the sequels. All the songs kinda sound like something you would hear in a parody of Grease, as opposed to a sequel. Also adding to bizarre feel of this sequel is that everyone delivers their lines as if they’re appearing in a stage production, projecting to the back of the theater and overenunciating every single syllable. This may have made sense for Grease, which was adapted from an actual stage show and, despite efforts to open up the action, was still deliberately stagey. Grease 2, meanwhile, is an adaptation of a stage show that never actually existed.
The film starts with a 7 minute production number called Back To School Again. As the Pink Ladies and the T-birds and all the other students show up outside of Rydell, they sing, “Woe is me! The Board of Education took away my parole.” And the scene just keeps going and going, until you start to wonder if Rydell High is a cult compound.
This is followed by a song about bowling (!) that’s called “Score Tonight.”
And it just keeps getting worse from there. The film becomes sickly fascinating as you find yourself trying to predict how much more worse it can possibly get. You may be tempted to give up but you’ll definitely want to stick around for the scene in which Michael discovers that Stephanie wants a “cool rider.” How does he know that? She sings a song about it!
Naturally, Michael gets a motorcycle, a helmet, and pair of goggles and he starts to romance Stephanie. Stephanie doesn’t know who that Michael is the mysterious motorcyclist, despite the fact that Michael is just wearing a helmet and a pair of goggles. Though you have to admire Pfieffer’s commitment to her role (and she gives a fairly good performance, considering the material she was working with), you can’t help but feel that Stephanie might not be the smart. Especially after she sings, “Who’s that guy?”
Uhmmm … it’s Michael. It’s not like he’s dressed up like a bat or wearing the Iron Man armor. He’s just got a helmet and goggles on. Add to that, while Maxwell Caulfield doesn’t give a bad performance (he seems to be doing the best he can with what he’s been given to work with), he also doesn’t attempt to act any differently when he’s the mysterious motorcyclist than when he’s Michael.
There are other things going on as well. The film is full of vignettes about life in 1961, all featuring the students and teachers at Rydell High. For instance, former teen idol Tab Hunter shows up as a substitute teacher and sings a song about reproduction.
And again, it’s so bad that you can’t look away and you watch knowing that you’ll never get the images and the songs out of your head. So compulsively watchable is this bad movie that I may have to watch it again after I finish this review. (Then again, I’ll probably just rewatch the fifth season of Degrassi…)
(That said, I would actually argue that Grease 2 is a better directed film than the first Grease. Grease 2 was directed by Grease‘s choreographer and, as opposed to the first film, the dance numbers are actually framed with modicum of care.)
(By the way, I’ve always wanted to use the phrase “modicum of care” in a review.)
Anyway, Grease 2 apparently bombed at the box office and, as a result, there have been no further Grease films. It’s a shame because you so know that Grease 3 would have taken place in 1967 and featured hippies.
When it comes to reviewing Grease on this site, the film and I have a long and twisted history. There have been several times when I was tempted to review Grease but one thing has always stopped me:
I absolutely hate this film.
Grease is one of my least favorite films and, to be honest, just thinking about it causes me pain. Just about everyone that I know loves Grease. They love the songs. They love the music. They love the performances. They want to see it on stage. They want to see it on the big screen. They watch every time it pops up on AMC.
Growing up as a theater nerd means being surrounded by people who love Grease. I cannot begin to count the number of times that I forced to watch this movie in school. So many theater teachers seemed to feel that showing Grease in class was some sort of reward but, for me, it was pure torture. And the fact that I was usually the only one who disliked the film made the experience all the more unbearable.
Back in 2014, when I was doing the first set of Back To School reviews, I was planning on reviewing Grease. But I just could not bring myself to voluntarily relive the film. Instead of putting myself through that misery, I decided to watch and review Rock ‘n’ Roll High School instead. It was the right decision and I stand by it.
Jump forward two years and here I am doing Back to School again. And again, for some reason, I had put Grease down as a film to review. It’s just a movie, right? And yet, after I finished writing my excellent review of Animal House, I again found myself dreading the idea of having to even think about Grease.
So, I said, “Fuck this,” and I promptly erased Grease from the list and I replaced it with Skatetown USA. Then I watched Skatetown and I’m glad that I did because that was an experience that I can’t wait to write about! And yet, I still had this nagging voice in the back of my mind.
“You’re going to have to review Grease at some point,” it said, “If not now, when?”
The voice had a point. However, I was soon reminded that there was an even more important reason to review Grease. A little further down on my list of Back to School films to review was a little film called Grease 2. How could I possibly review Grease 2 if I hadn’t already reviewed Grease? My OCD would not allow it!
And so, here I am, reviewing Grease.
Grease, of course, is a musical about teenagers in 1958. Danny (John Travolta) is in love with Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) and Sandy is in love with Danny. But Danny’s a greaser and Sandy’s Australian! Will they be able to work it out, despite coming from different worlds? Of course they will! Danny’s willing to dress up like a jock in order to impress Sandy while Sandy’s willing to wear black leather to impress Danny! Yay! They go together! And they’ve got a flying car, too! YAY!
And then Satan arrived…
Of course, there’s other subplots as well. For instance, Frenchy (Didi Conn) nearly drops out of school but she’s visited by Satan (Frankie Avalon) and he manages to change her mind. And Rizzo (Stockard Channing) might be pregnant because Kenickie (Jeff Conaway) hasn’t bought any new condoms since the 8th grade. Comparing the sensitive way that teen pregnancy was handled on a show like Degrassi: The Next Generation with the way it’s handled in Grease is enough to make you want to sing “O Canada” every day for the rest of your life.
Here’s what I do like about Grease: Stockard Channing is great as Rizzo, though it’s hard not to feel that she deserves better than a doofus boyfriend like Kenickie and a boring bestie like Sandy. I also like You’re The One That I Want. That’s a fun song.
But as for the rest of the movie … BLEH! I mean, it is so BORING! It takes them forever to get to You’re The One That I Want. Olivia Newton-John is so wholesome that she literally makes you want to tear your hair out while John Travolta pretty much acts on auto pilot. As for the supporting cast, most of them appeared in the stage production of Grease and they still seem to be giving stage performances as opposed to film performances. They’re still projecting their lines to the back of the house. Worst of all, it’s obvious that director Randal Kleiser had no idea how to film a musical because the dance numbers are so ineptly staged and framed that, half the time, you can’t even see what anyone’s doing with their feet. If you can’t see the feet, it defeats the whole purpose of having an elaborate dance number in the first place!
Overlong, wildly uneven, gimmicky too a fault, and often laugh out loud funny with a mix of jokes that range from the crude to the sublimely clever to the surprisingly sentimental, The History of the World, Part I is the ultimate Mel Brooks films.
Through the Shattered Lens 