Watch History of the World: Part I For Free

Don't Believe the Hype

A Masterpiece!

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Writer, producer & director Mel Brooks takes the opportunity to poke fun at various points in world history. Enough of his verbal and visual jokes are funny to make this pleasant - if never truly hysterical - viewing. Among the eras that he spoofs are The Stone Age, Biblical times, The Roman Empire, The Spanish Inquisition, and The French Revolution. Mel himself gets to play multiple roles, and gives some zany parts to a variety of top performers, some of them regulars in his filmography.Unfortunately, the momentum isn't always that great. The Roman Empire sequence really does go on too long. The movie isn't always terribly amusing, but when it does hit, it works well. The parody of The Spanish Inquisition is the brightest portion because it's portrayed as a splashy production number, complete with dancing monks and swimming nuns. It's just too funny to hear these characters sing about human depravity.And therein lies a critical factor with this entry in the Brooks resume. He's not afraid to possibly offend viewers, just as he was with his classic Western spoof "Blazing Saddles" of seven years previous. Some people might be surprised with the foul language employed, while others will be delighted. Brooks is clever at times with his anachronisms, and even has characters from different segments interacting with each other.The sequence with the primitive men and women also works pretty well. ("History of the World: Part I" actually came out around the same time as another skewering of prehistoric times, "Caveman" with Ringo Starr.) One moment that this viewer truly did love was the emergence of the "first artist", which leads to the emergence of the "first critic".Rather than list all of the familiar faces utilized by Brooks, this viewer thinks it best to just let others discover them for themselves. He will say, however, that among the performers, Sid Caesar (as a caveman) and Gregory Hines (as a slave) come off the best. (Hines, in his film debut, replaced Richard Pryor.) The cameo by the "entrepreneur" during The Roman Empire segment was unexpected and quite the hoot. Orson Welles can sometimes be heard as a narrator.As a final joke, a sequel (including a trip to space) is advertised before the closing credits.Six out of 10.

"History of the World: Part I" is a shocking example of a 90-minute series of gags that land with a dull thud. This is coming from a Mel Brooks fan, which is the reason for the shock. Also, the disappointment. It started out with promise (Brooks and the fift- . . . ten commandments, Bea Arthur in the unemployment office but then the Ancient Rome segment happens and things grind to a halt. And then never pick back up, even after we get out of Rome. It's not every day you see the comedic talents of Dom Deluise squandered (same thing happened with "Smokey and the Bandit II").This was bad.

Vulgar and wretchedly unfunny Brooks spoof. The only parts that made me laugh were Jews in Space and Hitler on Ice, which aren't even part of the movie.Wastes the talents of Brooks regulars, Korman, Kahn, Leachman, etc. A sad comedown for the talented and classy Madeline Kahn.Worse than Space Balls and Robin Hood Men in Tights, if that's possible, but better than Life Stinks, which is a complete disaster. Hard to believe this is the same talent who made The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, but then again, Brooks hasn't really been funny for 30 years.

Comic perspective is usually determined in the opening moments of a funny movie, establishing the rules of the new world and hooking the audience. Well, History of the World Part I begins with cavemen waking up and humping air for what feels like a solid 2 minutes. This is his Dawn of Man segment, a vague parody of Kubrick's 2001, before he moves on to The Stone Age during which the first art critic is sent up, and then mocks Moses in an Old Testament sketch, which is essentially a single joke that we fade into and out of that quickly. Where Brooks really goes to town is during The Roman Empire. He stars as a "stand-up philosopher" who, along with a black slave played by Gregory Hines and a defiant vestal virgin, brings pandemonium to the court of the extraordinarily hilarious Emperor Nero, in one of Dom DeLuise's most memorable performances, and Madeleine Kahn, his nymphomaniac empress.We're actually surprised when the movie moves on, because it seems to have decided to develop some semblance of a story there, unlike its preceding episodes. But it does, and Brooks again takes center stage as Torquemada, who celebrates his ecstatic pleasure in torturing Jews who reject Christianity in a Busby Berkeley tableau abounding with melody, singing, and a water ballet. Oh, and a funny little aside elucidates some unanswered questions about how Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Last Supper. Ultimately, Harvey Korman steals the spotlight from Brooks, as per usual, in an absurd caricature of The French Revolution. Korman plays foppish nobleman Count De Monet, who turns up with a cunning plot to save King Louis XVI from death at the hands of the mob by switching the King's lowly doppelganger on the crucial occasion.This is an incoherent, disorderly, sometimes awkward romp by one of the most talented comic filmmakers, who never seems to have a clear idea of the underlying principle of his seventh film escapade, so there's no assertive narrative incentive to bear it along. His historical context doesn't have any method or perspective. It's basically just an assembly line for whatever jokes he can sling on it. What is this off-the-wall grab bag? Is it a lampoon of old Biblical, Roman and French historical epics? From time to time. Is it a never-to-be-repeated, comedy vaudeville seizure? Now and then. Is it a send-up trained at haughty foils? Every so often. But generally it's in essence simply valuable sets standing there expecting Brooks to do something comical before them.Synchronously with Woody Allen, Brooks has helped sustain the comedy genre in contemporary films. As Allen has turned increasingly sophisticated and contemplative, Brooks has gotten increasingly campy and preposterous, the politically incorrect auteur and effortless ham actor's rudimentary oomph let loose flat out with this outrageous 1981 package picture, in which---rather than taking razor-sharp bites out of status quo mythologies and nostalgic legends as he did with his crowning achievements Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein---he indulges in our incessant need for mocking the sort of unconsciously class-based theories of manners and good form that inadvertently made burlesque all the rage in its puritan heyday. As in all movies by the ambitious Brooks, there are dull patches where the farce and the gags just don't work. But hit-or-miss is his style, so when he does hit, he hits the bullseye. Or at least somewhere in the red or yellow.