Brooks, Mel (1926—)
A woman once accosted filmmaker Mel Brooks and angrily told him that his 1968 comedy The Producers was "vulgar." "Madame," he said with an air of...
Read more
Mel Brooks (born 1926) transformed traditional burlesque and Jewish humor into a hit-and-miss career writing and directing film parodies of traditional Hollywood genres. His biggest success came late ...
Read more
"Humor is just another defense against the universe," Mel Brooks once observed. Screenwriter, director, actor, producer, comedian and occasional Two-Thousand-Year-Old Man: no one title is encompassing...
Read more
Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn, New York, to Max and Kate Brookman Kaminsky. His comedy career began at an early age with humorous routines he performed for his classmates at school, ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Tom Allen, S.c.
Mel Brooks, along with Woody Allen, has progressed as a prolific, one-man source of American screen comedy. Both comedians have picked up where Jerry Jewis died off a...
Read more
Critical Essay by Pauline Kael
Brooks not only isn't a director—he isn't really a writer, either. He's the cutup in the audience whose manic laughter and unrestrained comme...
Read more
Critical Essay by Herbert Gold
[Brooks] is the little boy, the youngest son, so beloved by his family and continually tossed in the air that his feet didn't touch the ground till he was 6 years...
Read more
Critical Essay by Jacoba Atlas
[Brooks'] films abound in lovingly precise dialect humor, a near-balletic control of physical comedy, and whirlwind pacing that begins in chaos and ends in sweet ...
Read more