Silent Movie

Day 126 - 5/6/09 - Movie #126

BEFORE: I was all set to continue the "boating" theme from the last 2 movies, and watch "The Perfect Storm", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", etc. - but then yesterday I heard about the death of Dom DeLuise - so I'm switching it up. (Instead I'll transition from actual silent movies to a spoof of silent movies...so that still works) I'm doing this because a co-worker said to me, "Who's Dom DeLuise?" After I named a half-dozen or so of his films, with zero recognition, she finally remembered him, from his Ziploc plastic bag commercials in the 1980's - but that's a little like remembering Einstein for his crazy haircut instead of his Theory of Relativity.

While I'm sure his Ziploc work was quite entertaining - please, if you were born after 1980, are unfamiliar with the films of Mel Brooks, or find yourself even CLOSE to saying "Who's Dom DeLuise?", I urge to you to run out and rent (or add to your Netflix queue, or whatever you kids do these days...) the following: "Fatso", "History of the World Part I", "The Twelve Chairs", and "Blazing Saddles". I don't think Mel Brooks could have properly ended "Blazing Saddles" without DeLuise's cameo as a choreographer. If you like those films, check out DeLuise's long association with Burt Reynolds, in films like "Smokey and the Bandit II", "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", and of course "Cannonball Run II" (I saw that dubbed into German, which didn't hurt it one bit - in fact, it might have made it better...) And if you've seen all those films, track down a clip on YouTube of Dom DeLuise on the Tonight Show - the REAL Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson - doing a trick with eggs, some rolled-up matchbooks and some glasses of water. It's not just the physical stunt, it's the STYLE of the execution, and the hilarious aftermath.

I did not know the man personally, but I know that the world was a funnier place with him in it, and it's a little less fun now that he's gone. Bottom line - he made people laugh, and that is a noble calling indeed.

THE PLOT: A film director and his strange friends struggle to produce the first major silent feature film in forty years.

AFTER: I take back what I said about "Sherlock Jr." - surely THIS is the most self-referential film ever made. A silent movie about the making of a silent movie. Though it's technically not "silent", since there's sound effects and incidental music. Plus there is exactly one word of spoken dialogue, performed quite ironically by the famous French mime, Marcel Marceau. It's an interesting proposition, making a film without spoken dialogue - it seems like it required not only a memory of how comedy was performed in the early days of cinema, but probably a complete re-invention of how to make a movie. I imagine it would be like losing the use of one's voice and having to learn a new way of communicating... The movie's filled with sight gags, and most of them connect, but not all.

RATING: 6 out of 10 entertainment lawyers