Gawker: defamer, mel brooks

It took a few days, but Mel Brooks finally...

STV — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:35:00 EDT

It took a few days, but Mel Brooks finally emerged from his Broadway bailiwick to stamp out that Page Six report that Brooksfilms is shutting its doors. "I'm not quitting," the filmmaker told The Hollywood Reporter's Leslie Simmons. "Brooksfilms is still here and will be going on for a while. I'm not at all slowing down, and nobody has told me to stop." OK, well, stop — please: Brooks also vaguely told Simmons about his forthcoming project Pizzaman, a "serious horror film" Brooksfilms is developing with longtime collaborators Rudy De Luca and Steve Haberman. Surely he must have alternatives; after all, isn't Silent Movie: The Musical an idea whose time has come? And must we really have mashed The Elephant Man up with Dracula: Dead and Loving It in vain? [THR]

Theater Geek Mel Brooks Officially Throws in Movie Towel

STV — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:50:00 EDT

As if Harvey Korman's passing wasn't enough cosmic, clipworthy grief for Mel Brooks devotees, today comes word that the filmmaker's 30-year-old production shingle Brooksfilms is closing its doors. It's not quite the loss it sounds like at first blush — the company hadn't released a film since 1995 — but as symbolic deaths in the family go, this one smarts. Brooks founded the shingle in 1978 to avoid potential genre confusion over The Elephant Man and other dramas he would produce throughout the '80s; Brooksfilms also yielded his last great comedy, History of the World, Part I, before tapering off with the likes of Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Then came Broadway, and Brooks never looked back. That doesn't mean we won't, though; join our reminiscing with the accompanying greatest hits (sorry, no Solarbabies here!), and Netflix accordingly. [NYP, video by Molly McAleer]

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Defamer Pledges Allegiance To A Recently Departed Harley Korman

Seth — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:27:56 EDT

Sadness on top of sadness, as the AP has confirmed the trickle of e-mails informing us that Harvey "Hedley" Korman has passed on. In his memory, we include one of his most momentous screen speeches: the rapist-rallying monologue from Blazing Saddles, which never fails to make us laugh no matter how many times we watch it. Goodnight, sweet prince—it's time to be reunited once and for all with your beloved Froggy.

Pledge to Hedley Lamarr [YouTube]
'Carol Burnett' star Harvey Korman dies at 81 [AP]

Cloris Leachman Stunned To Learn She Won't Play Frau Blucher (Whinny) In 'Frankenstein' Musical

Seth — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:43:25 EDT

Beloved Brooksian muse Cloris Leachman, who, with the exception perhaps of a double Golden Girls sighting, has been clinically proven to be most effective at eliciting squeals of approval from gay men over the age of 45, has been dealt the lowest of blows by the unkind business we call show. Reports Variety's veteran entertainment reporter Army "Hollywood's Original Blogger" Archerd:

A heartbroken Cloris Leachman says she's not to play Frau Blucher in Mel Brooks' musicalized "Young Frankenstein."
Cloris reports she was given that word in a letter from director Susan Stroman ("The Producers"). "I was told they don't want to go like the movie" — in which Cloris created the Frau Blucher character in 1974.

Cloris was invited to N.Y. to audition. She thought they loved her. Then came the note from Stroman.

It certainly seems an injustice that the actress—who's still breaking Emmy and beer-chugging records well into her 80s—should be passed over by producers who "want to take Blücher in a different direction" (read: younger and less scary to horses). The web-savvy, pro-Phyllis forces at SaveFrauBlucher.com, however, have already harnessed the powers of the internets to register their outrage. Certainly, if a Jericho peanut-shipping drive can resuscitate a network drama, a similar campaign inundating Frankenstein producers with crates of a significance-laden foodstuffs should be enough to work. Some varm milk... perhaps? Ovaltine?

Say Farewell to Frau Blucher [armyarcherd.com]
[saveFrauBlucher.com]