The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother
As a comedic enterprise, I must declare this film extraordinarily successful, although logistically derivative. Gene Wilder directed the movie, but all points of directing and humor bear the image of Mel Brooks. The movie is conceptually original (although a broad parody of the Sherlock Holmes ouvre), and it is in the specific jokes, casting, probably production costs, and the ending (as seemingly desperate as an exploding Muppet) that Mel Brooks' influence appears. This movie is truly funny, with jokes ranging from the raunchy (mostly breasts) to the intellectual (parody of the opera, the opening scene with Queen Victoria). Not once did any of the humor directly imitate Brooks specific jokes, but the flavor and style were unmistakable, probably because the casting was so similar and Brooks had such a handle on this kind of adventure parody (Star Wars, Robin Hood, Westerns, and Frankenstein all came under his artistic license, in two of which he starred Gene Wilder). Wilder's...