Customer Reviews

The Mel Brooks Collection (Blazing Saddles / Young Frankenstein / Silent Movie / Robin Hood: Men in Tights / To Be or Not to Be / History of the World, Part 1 / The Twelve Chairs / High Anxiety)

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Most of the movies here are classics which makes it a problem if you don't want all the movies. The version of "Blazing Saddles" is the earlier release from Warner which doesn't look as good as the 30th Anniversary re-release and the extras aren't any great shakes. The transfer looks so-so and lacks the sharper look of the later 30th Anniversary Edition. "Young Frankenstein" resembles the first DVD release of the film from Fox with the same extras. Reportedly "Young Frankenstein" was supposed to be remastered in anamorphic widescreen but the wrong master used or the wrong discs shipped with this set. For those that care it's not anamorphic. The film looks extremely good but if you already have these classic films, I'd suggest waiting for these to be released individually.

Fans of Brooks will be buying this for the previously unreleased films "Silent Movie", "Robin Hood:Men in Tights", "To Be or Not to Be" (which Brooks didn't direct but stars in) and "High Anxiety". All these films look pretty good here (although "The Twelve Chairs" is probably going to be of the least interest to fans that grew up on Brooks other classic films). "Robin Hood" comes with an featurette produced for HBO on the film. Most of the others come only with theatrical trailer(s). "To Be or Not To Be" comes with a short featurette and some profiles of Brooks, the late Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning. Clearly they weren't produced for the DVD but must be some sort of promotional bits for another format (you're guess is as good as mine)possibly for an Electtronic Press Book.

If you have problems with any of the discs you can contact Fox at their customer service phone number 1-888-223-2FOX.

FYI everyone, Mel Brooks only shot TWO films in wide screen: "Blazing Saddles" and "History of the World Part 1".

If you compare the rest of the films to the original full frame laserdiscs you will see that FOX just masked off the top & bottom of the picture to make the films look widescreen. They should have been presented in full frame to give us the complete picture, some signs & faces get cut off.

So now I have to keep my 1987 laserdiscs, even though these new transfers look sharper.

The missing films not in this box set are not owned by 20th Century Fox. We are lucky they made a special arrangement with Warner Brothers to include Blazing Saddles (although it is the old master) in this set.

"The Producers" , "Space Balls" and "Life Stinks" are owned by MGM.
"Dracula Dead and Loving it" is distributed by Warner Brothers & owned by Castlerock.

I just received my copy of the Mel Brooks Collection today. THe Young Frankenstein disk is indeed in Anamorphic Widescreen, so they must have fixed the problem. This is a great set with great movies!

Fox should be ashamed of what it has done to these movies! All eight of these movies are presented as being "wide screen". However, for most of them this is achieved by removing the top and bottom of the old full screen image.

I compared all eight of these DVDs to the VHS releases, and found that five of the movies have been cropped to make them appear "widescreen". The VHS formats are in a 16 x 12 ratio (the proportaions of the old-fashioned standard US TV screen). Fox has removed the top eighth and bottom eighth of each movie to make them fill the new 16 x 9 ratio widescreen TVs. The following five movies in this set have been cropped: Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, Silent Movie, To Be or Not To Be, Robin Hood. The DVDs in this set present only 3/4 of the image that was shown on the old VHS releases.
The other three (Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, History of the World, Part 1) appear to be true wide-screen releases. The DVDs show the full picture from the VHS releases, but wider.

When will studios understand that what most buyers want is the full image of the original movie, regardless of its proportions? Cutting part of the image to make it appear to fit your TV screen is butchering the original product. Please do not promote this practice with the purchase of this set; wait for a proper release.

I love the movies but I have experienced problems with "Robin hood: men in tights" on one of my dvd players (one of the main ones) it wont play on it. Works fine on my computer dvd player and my other dvd player. I am not sure if I just got a bad one or what. I have found no way of contacting foxhome via email (apperently they dont care to hear from custermers.) I am unsure if I want to try to return it or not. I just thought I would let people know considering I have found no info on it anywhere.

Like many of the others, I have been waiting for one of the movies in this set to come out on DVD...High Anxiety. I have no problem selling my copies of Blazing Saddles, History of the World Part 1, and Young Frankenstein since they will all be in the box set. Now, I'm as big a fan of Mel Brooks as anyone else, and would LOVE to see a box set come out with all of his films. I've read where some people are disappointed that the original Producers, Spaceballs and Life Stinks are not included in this set. I hope this isnt news to anyone, but the rights to those films are owned by MGM studios. These films are all released by FOX. Perhaps in the near future, MGM will release a box set, too, but until then, I'll be enjoying this set.

Despite many of the other reviews posted here, I'm quite pleased with this collection. They appear to be using the premium versions of the previously released titles (something that surprisingly didn't happen with the Blazing Saddles box), and are finally releasing High Anxiety and Silent Movie, in addition to the other fine titles. Glad to see the severely underappreciated Twelve Chairs included also. This buy is a no-brainer, from my perspective.

Okay, I admit I was pretty dissapointed to not see the 2004 SE release of Blazing Saddles, but since my Dad owns the SE release already, I'm not too worried. Otherwise this is sheer kick-ass movie set of my favorite comedy director of all time (along David Zucker), Mel Brooks.

Here are my given thoughts of the eight movies presented in this set:

Blazing Saddles-10/10 One of my all-time favorite comedies, this one literally pokes fun at all the early Western movies we've seen. A recently hired black sheriff tries to protect the peaceful town of Rock Ridge from certain troubles, most of which come from Attorney General Hedy Lamarr ("That's Hedley!") trying to destroy the town and build a railroad across the area.

High Anxiety-9/10 A hilarious sendup to the Hitchcock stories, this one shows Dr. Richard A. Thorndyke, a psychiatrist with an huge fear of heights, become head of a pyschiatric institute, and realizes that he's dealing with a much bigger fear than his own.

History of the World, Part I-8/10 Hilarious. This one is a ragbag of sketches, showing the timeline from the evolution of men to the Roman Era, to Spanish Catholic conversion to the French Revolution, all shown Brooks style. The Spanish Inquisition song, is a real hoot.

Robin Hood: Men In Tights-7/10 Not Brooks's best, but still quite enjoyable. It's basically a parody on Robin Hood, which its jokes hit more than miss.

Silent Movie-8/10 First time I've seen it, and I like it. The title here explains it all: A silent movie about a crew of moviemakers making a silent movie for the Big Studios before the company Engulf and Devour takes over the studio. A simple plot, but still lots of fun.

The Twelve Chairs-7/10 Even the most underrated Brooks film has some appeal, because despite of the lack of laughs, its storyline with a twist ending brings it home. Russian clerk Ippolit (Ron Moody) tries to find his mother's fortune stored in the cushion of one of the 12 dining room chairs before Rev. Fyodor (Dom DeLuise) finds it for himself. Fyodor brings most of the laughs of this whole movie with his maniacal character and hilarious dialogue.

To Be Or Not To Be-10/10 A hilarious adaption of the old WWII story, as a Polish actor and his wife try to save themselves and the other actors of their theatre from Nazism cropping all over Poland.

Young Frankenstein-10/10 Great sendup to Frankenstein. Peter Boyle plays an excellent monster, but the best preformance comes from Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, who gains the inheritance of his father and takes the science of ressurrecting a being onto himself.

Despite the double dipping of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, the majority of this set is classic. So what are you waiting for? Don't be the Piss boy and buy this set! "It's good to be the king."

This collection definitely represents Brooks at his best. Most of these movies are more sophisticated satire, as opposed to goofball spoofs like some that were left out. At least with the movies made in the 70s, there is a recurrent theme of jazz and chess. There's at least one reference to one if not both of these in Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and History of the World. It's been a long time since I've seen the others, so I don't remember if they have it, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere!

Shining among these discs has to be The Tweleve Chairs. I think it would be hard to classify this as a comedy. It really is more of a drama with some comedic moments. It's usually the most overlooked of his films. Set in post-revolution Russian, the story follows a con artist and a deposed nobleman in search of a chair his mother had hidden the family jewels. It also features another fine opening song penned by Mel.

I'm glad that it is getting its moment in the sun!

Buyer beware: the Blazing Saddles included here is the older release without ANY of the special features on the 30th anniversary edition