Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22583 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-12-26
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Synopsis
In this perceptive, sidesplitting homage to Hichcock films, director, star, and writer Mel Brooks plays the average American guy, psychiatrist Richard Thorndyke (as in Roger Thorndike, Cary Grant's character in NORTH BY NORTHWEST), who's terrified of heights (think VERTIGO). He becomes the new chief of the Institute for the Very Very Nervous, where things are not what they seem, and it's not long before Richard finds himself embroiled in murder, deception, and other hilarious situations. While Brooks plays the quintessential innocent man accused, Madeline Kahn is perfect as his Hichcockian icy blonde love interest, Victoria Brisbane. It is perhaps Cloris Leachman, though, who is at her most deviantly funny as Nurse Diesel a kind of cross between her Frau Blucher character from YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and Nurse Rached from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. HIGH ANXIETY is a treat to watch just to spot the Hitchcock parodies/homages, as Brooks amiably spoofs some of the suspense master's most famous scenes, including hysterical takeoffs of THE BIRDS and PSYCHO. HIGH ANXIETY is one of Mel Brooks's most consistently entertaining films.

Customer Reviews

Sublime comedy - without a hitch
As someone who has been a Mel Brooks fan since my early teens, it's difficult to be entirely objective about this somewhat forgotten gem. True, it wasn't groundbreaking like Blazing Saddles or as obvious a labour of love as Young Frankenstein, but it's still up there with the very best of Mel's work. It feels less dated than Silent Movie, which came before it (VERY seventies) and afterwards...well, it was all downhill really until he had the idea of turning The Producers into a stage musical.

To really enjoy this film, you do have to be fond of Alfred Hitchcock's work and critics have often felt Brooks didn't do it justice. I disagree. As well as the blatant and hilarious scenes parodying Psycho, The Birds and Vertigo, the more devoted fan will spot references to Spellbound, Dial M for Murder, Suspicion, Rebecca and many more, right back to The Lodger. Furthermore, the music, colourschemes, even angles echo The Master of Suspense's innovative work.

I loved the camera crashing through the French windows or being trapped looking upwards through a glass table, the dissolve where Nurse Diesel's glaring eyes become the headlamps of a car at night, the fact that 'a Mr McGuffin phoned and asked me to change your room to the seventeenth floor' (a McGuffin was Hitchcock's pet name for an irrelevant plot device).

Of course, if you're not a Hitchcock fan (or at least familiar with his work), you're unlikely to be particularly amused by most of this, but unlike today's tendency to ape films everyone will have seen with so little creativity that there is nothing to laugh at at all, this movie rewards a little intelligence with a lot of laughs.

"I got it... I got it... I got it... I ain't got it!"
Nobody is safe from satire, not even Alfred Hitchcock. But Mel Brooks straddles the line between parody and affectionate homage in "High Anxiety," a hysterical psychiatric comedy that deftly references all sorts of Hitch films -- while keeping in Brooks' trademark slapstick, hilarious dialogue, and weird characters.

Dr. Richard Thorndyke (Brooks) has just been hired as the director of Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, VERY Nervous, after the sudden death of the previous administrator. Something odd seems to be going on -- screams are heard, a patient signals Thorndyke with a mirror, and Dr. Charles Montague (Harvey Korman) frightens a patient into fits. Then one of the doctors dies mysteriously, while trying to leave the conspiracy.

And when Thorndyke is lecturing at a psychiatry convention, the evil Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman) sends a hired killer (wearing a Thorndyke mask) to frame the doctor for murder. Now Thorndyke must elude the police and the killer, clear his name with the help of a mysterious blonde heiress (Madeleine Kahn), and overcome his crippling "high anxiety."

As a homage/spoof, this is gold. Brooks deftly weaves together elements and storylines from various Hitchock movies, including "Vertigo" and "Spellbound," with some nods to "Psycho," "North By Northwest" and "The Birds." There's dizzying looks down a wooden tower, newspaper "stabbings" in the shower, and Madeleine Kahn's strange not-so-icy blonde.

But it's also a great movie in its own right. Rather than outright slapstick as in some of his movies, Brooks instead crafts a clever thriller framed with delicious comedy -- he even makes fun of some standard filmmaking devices. For example, Thorndyke's hotel suite is switched for a top-floor room because of a call from... "a Mr. McGuffin."

And he fills it with hysterical comedic situations, like Victoria mistaking the sounds of a life-or-death struggle for a phone sex pervert, or Thornduke being assaulted by a crazed bellboy. And his dialogue is solidly quotable in this one ("Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup"). The highlight has to be murder-by-bad-pop song, where a man is trapped in a car with the unspeakably bad "If You Love Me Tell Me Loud Loud Loud."

Gene Wilder wasn't available when this was made, so Brooks took the lead himself. The seriousness of the character doesn't entirely fit him, but he's a solid enough Thorndyke, especially when he has to give a G-rated speech about penis envy.

Most of the comedy comes from an unfortunately blonde Madeleine Kahn as the chic love interest, as well as a ghoulish Leachman and S&M enthusiastic Korman ("Too much bondage, too much bondage, not enough discipline!"). And Ron Carey and Howard Morris round the cast off, as the photographically obsessed chauffeur and the stereotypical little German shrink.

"High Anxiety" is an affectionate parody/homage to Hitchcock -- even Hitchcock was pleased by it -- but it's also a solid comedy movie. Definitely worth seeing!

High Anxiety
This is one of mel brooks best films, second only to Young Frankenstein. Lots of jokes at hitchcocks expense but, mel makes up for it by giving him an on screen dedication!