History of the World -- Part I

Mel Brooks produced, directed, wrote, and starred in this episodic comedy in the spirit of Monty Python and the 1957 studio travesty The Story of Mankind. The film is divided into five sequences that play like blue-toned Eddie Cantor vaudeville sketches -- "The Dawn of Man," "The Stone Age," The ...more

History of the World Part I is the kind of uneven comedy whose bad parts are so unworthy of its good parts that it creates a state of total schizophrenia. As those who shook their heads at the sputtering ending of Blazing Saddles will attest, Mel Brooks can be brilliant in stretches, but he often fills the gaps with eye-rolling idiocy, or simply ceases to try. Give him credit for making an ambitious parody with dozens of familiar faces hamming it up, but then take some away for the indifferent ...more