High Anxiety (A) + The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (A), August 1979

(USA, 1978: director Mel Brooks)

MEL BROOKS, MADELINE KAHN, CLORIS LEACHMAN, HARVEY KORMAN.  I’m not even trying to be funny about this film – Brooks is funnier!  The movie is superb.  It’s a parody – and a very comic one at that – of the many movies of Alfred Hitchcock: The Birds, Psycho, North by Northwest, Rear Window – they’re all here.  Perhaps at times the direction waxes a trifle crude, but the players are splendid enough to cut through the excesses with keen comic precision – notably Cloris Leachman  as Nurse Diesel with her kinky sidelines, and Barry Levinson as a hysterical  bellboy.  I really enjoyed this one , not least on account of its obvious enthusiasm for the director it lampoons.

Preceded, in a fantastic value double-feature programme, by 

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES’ SMARTER BROTHER (A)

(USA), 1975: director Gene Wilder)

GENE WILDER, LEO McKERN, MADELINE KAHN, MARTY FELDMAN, DOM DE LUISE.  I admit to a feeling of deja-vu, for this was the film shown earlier this year at a special charity screening in aid of the Adult Training Centre.  It was funny then, and it’ll be just as funny now.  Should you want to read my full write-up, look back to the February diary.  Suffice to say now that it’s terrific fun, that I saw it last time,  and that I’m going to see it again!

Tickets for all performances 70p and £1.00