History of the World Part 1 Remember Thou Art Mortal
| History of the World, Part I | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release affiche | |
| Directed by | Mel Brooks |
| Written by | Mel Brooks |
| Produced by | Mel Brooks |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Woody Omens |
| Edited by | John C. Howard |
| Music by | John Morris |
| Production | Brooksfilms |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Play a trick on |
| Release engagement |
|
| Running time | 92 minutes[1] |
| Country | U.s.a. |
| Language | English language |
| Budget | $10 million[ii] |
| Box office | $31.7 million[3] |
History of the World, Role I is a 1981 American comedy film written, produced, and directed past Mel Brooks. Brooks also stars in the moving picture, playing five roles: Moses, Comicus the stand-upwardly philosopher, Tomás de Torquemada, King Louis XVI, and Jacques, le garçon de pisse. The large ensemble cast likewise features Sid Caesar, Shecky Greene, Gregory Hines (in his film debut), Charlie Callas; and Brooks regulars Ron Carey, Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Andreas Voutsinas, and Spike Milligan.
The film as well has cameo appearances by Royce D. Applegate, Bea Arthur, Nigel Hawthorne, Hugh Hefner, John Hurt, Phil Leeds, Barry Levinson, Jackie Stonemason, Paul Mazursky, Andrew Sachs and Henny Youngman, among others. Orson Welles narrates each story.
Despite carrying the title Part I, in that location were originally no plans for a sequel. The title is a play on The History of the World, Volume i by Sir Walter Raleigh, as detailed below. Even so, twoscore years after the film was originally released, Hulu announced that it ordered a sequel variety series titled History of the World, Part Ii, with production planned to begin in Jump 2022.[iv]
Plot [edit]
The moving picture is a parody of the historical spectacular movie genre album, including the sword and sandal epic and the catamenia costume drama subgenres. The four master segments consist of stories ready during the Stone Age, the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition, and the French Revolution. Other intermediate skits include reenactments of the giving of the Ten Commandments and the Last Supper.
The Stone Age [edit]
Cavemen (including Sid Caesar) depict the invention of burn, the commencement creative person (which in plow gives rise to the outset critic), the first marriages (Homo sapiens and and then homosexual), archaic weapons (peculiarly spears), and the offset funerals. Besides depicted are early on attempts at one-act and music, by bully each other'south feet with rocks and thus creating an orchestra of screams (until performing Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" at the finish).
The Erstwhile Testament [edit]
Moses (Mel Brooks) comes down from Mountain Sinai carrying three stone tablets, having received the Law from God (the vocalism of an uncredited Carl Reiner). When announcing the giving of the reception of the constabulary to the people, Moses proclaims, "The Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen..." (whereupon he drops 1 of the tablets, which promptly shatters) "Oy... ten! TEN Commandments! For all to obey!"
The Roman Empire [edit]
Brooks plays Comicus, a "stand up-up philosopher," whose job combines elements of philosophy and stand up-upward comedy. Comicus is notified past his amanuensis Swiftus (Ron Carey) that he has landed a gig at Caesar's palace. In road to the palace Comicus meets and falls in honey with a Vestal Virgin named Miriam (Mary-Margaret Humes) and befriends an Ethiopian slave named Josephus (Gregory Hines). Josephus' life is spared when he is conscripted into the service of the Empress Nympho (Madeline Kahn).
At the Palace, Emperor Nero (Dom DeLuise) gorges on nutrient, ogles pretty maidens and waits to exist entertained. Comicus forgets his audience and begins to crack insulting ane-liners about the emperor's abundant body contours and corrupt ways. Josephus absentmindedly pours a jug of wine into Nero's lap and is ordered to fight Comicus to the death in a gladiatorial manner. They fight their fashion out of the palace, assisted in their escape by Miriam, Empress Nympho and a horse named Miracle.
After Miriam helps Comicus, Josephus and Swiftus briefly observe refuge in Empress Nympho'southward palace, Josephus is "outed" amongst a row of eunuchs after "reacting" to a seductive dancer's operation, and the group is chased by Roman soldiers led past Marcus Vindictus (Shecky Greene). As the soldiers gain on the grouping's cart (pulled by Miracle), Josephus instructs them to pull over in a field and requests much papyrus. He takes "Roman Red" marijuana which is growing alongside the road and rolls information technology into the papyrus, forming a device he calls Mighty Articulation, sets fire to it and mounts it to the back of their chariot, abaft smoke into the chasing army.
The resulting smoke confuses and incapacitates the trailing Roman army. The escaping grouping then sets canvas from the port to Judea. While waiting tables at a eating place, Comicus blunders into a individual room where the Last Supper is taking place, as Jesus is telling the apostles "One of you lot has betrayed me tonight". The Apostles are in fright. Comicus says "JUDAS." Judas, startled, almost jumps out of his seat as Comicus replies "Exercise yous want some mulled wine?", and interrupts Jesus (John Injure) repeatedly (using his proper noun every bit an expression for dismay or concern, right in front of him). Eventually, Leonardo da Vinci (Fine art Metrano) arrives to paint the grouping's portrait. Dissatisfied that he tin can merely see the backs of half of their heads, he has them move to one side of the table and paints them with Comicus behind Jesus, holding a silver plate which doubles as a halo.[5]
The Spanish Inquisition [edit]
The Spanish Inquisition segment parodies a grandiose Busby Berkeley-style production, consisting of an extended song-and-dance number featuring Brooks equally the infamous Torquemada. The sequence opens with a herald introducing Torquemada and making a play on his name; despite pleas for mercy from the condemned, "you lot can't Torquemada anything" (talk him outta anything). Instances of comical torture include a spinning iron maiden and "water torture" reimagined with nuns performing an Esther Williams-style aquatic ballet. Jackie Mason and Ronny Graham supply cameos as Jewish torture victims.
The French Revolution [edit]
In her tavern Madame Defarge (Cloris Leachman) incites a mob to plot the French Revolution. Meanwhile, Male monarch Louis of France (Brooks again) is warned by his advisors, Count de Monet (played by Harvey Korman and mistakenly called "Count da Money" by the king and others) and his associate Béarnaise (Andreas Voutsinas), that the peasants do not call up he likes them — a suspicion reinforced past the king's use of peasants every bit clay pigeons in a murderous (and humorous) game of skeet. A beautiful adult female, Mademoiselle Rimbaud (Pamela Stephenson), asks Rex Louis to free her father, who has been imprisoned in the Bastille for 10 years because he said "the poor own't so bad." He agrees to the pardon under the status that she accept sex activity with him that nighttime, while threatening that should she refuse, her begetter volition die. He gives her 10 seconds to decide between "hump or death" and at the last second she agrees to "hump".
De Monet manages to convince the rex that the revolution is building and he needs to go into hiding, so they will need a stand-in to pretend to be him. Thus Jacques (also Brooks), the garçon de pisse (a.k.a. "piss-boy," whose job is to hold up buckets for the rex and his advisors to urinate into), is chosen to impersonate the real king. Later that nighttime, Rimbaud, unaware of the subterfuge, arrives and offers herself to the piss-boy who is dressed equally the rex. As she invites him to accept her virginity, he pardons her begetter without requiring the sexual favors. After Rimbaud and her senile father (Spike Milligan) return from the prison, the peasants burst into the room and capture the piss-boy "king" and Rimbaud. They are taken to the guillotine for the crimes committed by the crown. When asked if he would like a blindfold or any last words, Jacques declines. However, when they test the guillotine, Jacques make a final request for Novocain. The dialogue recognizes this as an anachronism when the executioner declares "there is no such thing known to medical science", to which Jacques replies "I'll wait". Just as Jacques is about to be beheaded, Rimbaud muses that "merely a miracle can salve him now", and Josephus arrives in a cart pulled by Miracle, the horse from the flick's Roman Empire segment. They all escape Paris, riding away in the cart. The last shot is of the party approaching a mountain carved with the words "THE END".
Previews of coming attractions [edit]
The end of the movie presents a mock teaser trailer for History of the World, Part II, narrated by Brooks, which promises to include Hitler on Ice, a Viking funeral, and "Jews in Space", a parody of Star Wars and The Muppet Show.
Despite the preview, there were originally no plans for a sequel to be released. The "Part I" of the film's title was originally intended to be a historical joke[6] [ better source needed ] (The History of the Globe, Volume ane was written past Sir Walter Raleigh while prisoner in the Belfry of London; he had only managed to consummate the first book before being beheaded).[seven] However, in 2021, a sequel was announced to be in product as detailed below.[8]
Cast [edit]
Production [edit]
Brooks recalled that the inspiration for the picture came about from an incident in 1979:
"I was walking across the parking lot at 20th-Century Fox on my fashion to my part when one of the grips who had worked on High Anxiety shouted to me from the back of a moving truck. 'Hey Mel, what's adjacent? Planning a big one?'
From out of the blueish the biggest title I could think of popped into my listen: 'Yeah, the biggest moving-picture show always made. Information technology's called 'History of the World.'' Someone else on the truck yelled: 'How tin can you cover the whole globe in ane movie?'
'You're right,' I shouted. 'Maybe I'll call it 'History of the World — Part I.'"[9]
Richard Pryor was to play the office of Josephus, but two days before he was to shoot his function he was hospitalized with serious burns in a much-publicized incident.[9] [10] Brooks was about to write the function out when Madeline Kahn suggested Gregory Hines.[9]
Comicus' arrival at Caesar'south palace was filmed at the Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas.
One scene was removed from the concluding cutting of the film that referred to the Three Mile Island accident. "I had a begetter and a mother," Brooks said, "fabricated upward to look like half a dog and half a cat as a result of a nuclear meltdown. But the audience was seriously chilled and didn't laugh, so I left it out."[eleven]
Release [edit]
Disquisitional reception [edit]
The film holds an blessing rating of 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 33 reviews.[12] It was nominated for Worst Picture show at the 1981 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards only lost to Tarzan, the Ape Man. The revised ballot, released in 2007, removed its Worst Picture nomination and instead nominated it for Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy (which it won). It also garnered a Worst Song nomination at the same anniversary for "The Inquisition" (lost to "Baby Talk" from Paternity).
Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four and described information technology as "a rambling, undisciplined, sometimes embarrassing failure from ane of the almost gifted comic filmmakers around. What went wrong? Brooks never seems to have a articulate idea of the rationale of his movie, so there'southward no confident narrative impetus to carry it forth."[13] Gene Siskel, however, gave it three stars out of four and said that fifty-fifty though the picture "borrows heavily from [Brooks'] previous work," it "contains a bunch of solid laughs."[14] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "There are loads of familiarly funny gags in the picture ... Only the picture is so sour that its humor is oftentimes undermined, because and so many of the jokes are either mean-spirited or scatological, or both."[fifteen] Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was positive and wrote, "Information technology'due south an all-out assault on gustatory modality and taboo, and it made me express mirth a lot."[16] Diversity called information technology "a disappointingly uneven farce which serves up a fair share of hearty laughs during its outset one-half, but sputters out long earlier the close."[17] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Presumably anybody was so busy doing shtick and reacting off each other that there was no ane left to mind the story and to say, 'Not funny.' Not only not funny, simply a big, overblown, crashing bore, fellas."[eighteen] Gary Arnold of The Washington Mail service called it "an entertaining mishmash of skits which finds Mel Brooks dorsum in lively form, for better and for worse ... To a considerable extent the funny stuff works in a laughing-in-spite-of-yourself way."[nineteen] Leonard Maltin's moving-picture show guide gave the movie one-and-a-half out of a possible four stars and stated that the gags "range from hilarious to hideous. After a while there'south no more momentum, and it all just lies there, despite the efforts of a big comic bandage."[20]
Jonathan Rosenbaum has always championed the moving picture as a guilty pleasure, writing that "the wonderful stuff is so funny that it makes well-nigh of the atrocious stuff tolerable ... Proceed in listen that Brooks is more verbal than visual in orientation and you'll exist amply rewarded."[21]
Box office [edit]
The moving picture opened in 484 theatres the aforementioned weekend equally Raiders of the Lost Ark and Clash of the Titans and finished fourth for the weekend with a gross of $4.viii 1000000,[3] backside Raiders, Disharmonism and Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams.[22] With a per-screen boilerplate of $10,000, it was Brooks' highest opening on a per-screen basis.[22] Despite the strong offset, poor word of oral fissure impacted its box office. Although it grossed $31.vii one thousand thousand, it was considered a commercial disappointment considering the film had been "tracking" well and Brooks' previous films had been so successful.[23]
Home media [edit]
History of the Earth, Part I was released on DVD. According to the MPAA, it was rated "R" for "crude sexual humor, linguistic communication, comic violence, sex and nudity, and drug use". In May 2010, it was released on Blu-ray.
Sequel series [edit]
On October 18, 2021, Hulu and Searchlight Television (the TV sectionalisation of 20th Century's sis studio, Searchlight Pictures) announced that a sequel diversity series, called History of the Globe, Part Ii is in the works, with a Jump 2022 production date scheduled. Mel Brooks is producing and writing the series along with Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, and Nick Kroll.[24]
References [edit]
- ^ "History of the World Part one (AA)". British Board of Pic Classification. July 22, 1981. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
- ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Play a joke on: A Corporate and Financial History. Scarecrow Press. p. 259. ISBN9780810842441.
- ^ a b "History of the World, Part ane". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved September 2, 2016.
- ^ Otterson, Joe (Oct 18, 2021). "'History of the World Part Two' Variety Series Ordered at Hulu, Mel Brooks to Write and Executive Produce (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety.
- ^ Carlson, Alex (June one, 2008). "Top 8 Mel Brooks Movies of All-Fourth dimension". FilmMisery.com . Retrieved December 27, 2012.
- ^ "History of the World: Part I (1981)". IMDb.com . Retrieved August 11, 2010.
DIRECTOR TRADEMARK (Mel Brooks): (sequel): At the stop of the movie, a trailer is shown for "History of the Globe: Role II". In that location never has been a motion picture called this. The "Function I" in this motion-picture show'southward title is a joke.
- ^ "Sir Walter Raleigh". Britishexplorers.com. September 30, 2000. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
- ^ "Mel Brooks Diverseness Series 'History of the World, Office II' Fix at Hulu". October xviii, 2021.
- ^ a b c Brooks, Mel (June vii, 1981). "The World According to Mel Brooks". The New York Times. pp. D1, D15.
- ^ Evans, Bradford (September 1, 2011). "The Lost Roles of Richard Pryor". Splitsider. Archived from the original on June 29, 2015. Retrieved Dec 11, 2018.
- ^ Gene, Siskel (June 7, 1981). "Mel Brooks plays 'History' for new laughs". Department half-dozen. Chicago Tribune. pp. 5, six.
- ^ History of the World, Office I at Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "History of the World Part ane". RogerEbert.com.
- ^ Siskel, Gene (June 12, 1981). "Brooks' 'History': Funny, uneven blast from the by". Section 3. Chicago Tribune. p. iii.
- ^ Maslin, Janet (June 12, 1981). "Moving picture: Brooks'south 'History of the World'". The New York Times. p. C14.
- ^ Kael, Pauline (June 29, 1981). "The Current Movie theatre". The New Yorker. p. 93.
- ^ "Motion picture Reviews: History of the Earth—Function I". Variety. 18.
- ^ Benson, Sheila (June eleven, 1981). "Brooks' 'History': The Formula Turns Sour". Los Angeles Times. Role Six, p. 1.
- ^ Arnold, Gary (June 12, 1981). "Whirl of 'History'". The Washington Post. E1.
- ^ Maltin, Leonard, ed. (1995). Leonard Maltin's 1996 Picture show & Video Guide. Signet. p. 582. ISBN0-451-18505-6.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "History of the Globe—Part I". Chicago Reader . Retrieved December half-dozen, 2018.
- ^ a b "Weekend Biz Breaks B.O. Logjam; 'Raiders,' 'Titans' and 'History' Score". Diversity. June 17, 1981. p. iii.
- ^ Harmetz, Aljean (September ix, 1981). "HOLLYWOOD IS JOYOUS OVER ITS RECORD GROSSING SUMMER". The New York Times . Retrieved Oct 10, 2017.
- ^ Otterson, Joe (October 18, 2021). "'History of the World Part Two' Diverseness Series Ordered at Hulu, Mel Brooks to Write and Executive Produce (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety . Retrieved October xx, 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-condition (link)
External links [edit]
- History of the World, Role I at IMDb
- History of the World, Function I at AllMovie
- History of the World, Part I at Box Function Mojo
- History of the World, Part I at Rotten Tomatoes
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World,_Part_I
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