![]() The following, the Spanish Inquisition, again with Mel Brooks as Torquemada making a spectacular dances, including a beautiful swimmers. ![]() The second about Roman Empire with a filthy emperor Nero(Don DeLuise) with flatulence,a lecherous empress(Madeleine Khan) a slave(Gregory Hines) and of course, Mel Brooks. The first part during the Stone age with a sympathetic cavemen(Sid Caesar, Ron Carey) inventing the music. The film concerns about history of the world in various parts, from the dawn of human being until the distant future in French Revolution and narrated by Orson Welles. A second part might not have been a great film either, but it would have been quite as amusing. Judging from the final scenes from the sequel, Brooks could have done a Viking movie, a skating film about Nazism, and a space musical about the Jews. The disjointed style is a minor problem in enjoying the film. He was also lucky to have Gregory Hines, usually a dancer but here a strikingly breezy comic, and Orson Welles doing the narration properly (note his voice's confusion at the start when describing the first heterosexual marriage, followed by the first homosexual one). Brooks uses a number of his regulars in the film: Madeline Kahn as the Empress Nympho, Dom DeLuis as the Emperor (one could call him "piggy" after one particular comment about his eating habits), Harvey Korman as the foppish Count du Monet, Sid Caesar as a caveman who is full of awe. Besides having a problem when he keeps saying "JEEZUS" causing John Hurt (who is Christ) to ask, "Yes?", there is the problem of the painting being done by Da Vinci (Art Metrano), and how Brooks manages to get into the background of the masterpiece - holding his tray like a halo behind Hurt). After fleeing Rome, Brooks has reached Palestine and is the waiter serving the "Last Supper". Similar stuff is throughout the film (typical of Brooks' inventiveness). In a moment we see there is a robber in back of "Moses" holding him up (hence his arms in the air), and when the robber leaves the old man starts cursing him. The refugees flee thanking God and Moses. A river is parted like the Red Sea with "Moses" arms in the air. Suddenly they see an old man - Brooks dressed like Moses (from an earlier sequence in the film). The four desperate refugees from the Roman Empire, followed by centurions, pray for a miracle. It has wonderful moments in it - some are thrown away. I am sure that Brooks was inventive enough to have created three film spoofs, but for some reason he decided to just concentrate on pasting these mini-spoofs together. It looks like it was based on bits and pieces of ideas that could have been built up into separate movies: a film about the stone age, a film about the Roman Empire, a film about the French Revolution. "History Of The World" is a funny film, but it is not one of his best films. Mel Brooks did not invent the comedy spoof movie, but his best work ("Blazing Saddles", "Young Frankenstein", "Dracula, Dead And Loving It", and "High Anxiety") certainly make the most of it - even if some of it gets rather too dirty (literally dirty - "caca" dirty). Really, all I'll say now is if you are a die-hard Brooks fan, I highly recommend History of the World, Part I. ![]() Seeing him doing the Spanish Inquisition as a Busby Berkeley-Esther Williams number was perhaps the most irreverent thing he ever did especially when the nuns doff their uniforms to reveal their one-piece swimsuits and bathing caps! Gregory Hines made his film debut here and is a hoot whether doing his dance steps in order to keep him from trouble or making a giant joint to distract the Roman guards! Madeline Kahn and Cloris Leachman also contribute their funny selves to good effect and then there's longtime Brooks associate Sid Ceasar playing a cave man in the Stone Age segment also being his usual funny self. And then there's Mel Brooks, who not only produced and directed this, but also single-handedly wrote it and stars in most of the sketches. ![]() There are quite a few scatological jokes from Dom DeLuise burping and farting in the Roman sequence to Harvey Korman's peeing in the French Revolution segment. After 30 years, I finally got to see the entirety of Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I and I gotta say, I found most of it funny though I can understand why many critics were offended by much of it.
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