Prop poster portrays choreographer’s bad-taste pinnacle
This prop poster from The Producers (1968) is displayed outside the theater during the premiere of “Springtime for Hitler,” and is also visible at greater length in the “Playhouse Outtake” on the DVD. It is on auction December 10 at Bonhams as part of the TCM presents: 1939, Hollywood’s Greatest Year sale. “Springtime for Hitler” ...
Alan Johnson / Mel Brooks dance-clips party at the Paley Center 1
Ed. note: Guest writer Julie McDonald, senior agent and co-founder of McDonald Selznick Associates (MSA), contributes this story about a tribute event for the choreographer Alan Johnson. Sunday evening I attended a career retrospective of the great choreographer, Alan Johnson, held at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills. Having attended a prior celebration ...
All hail Alan Johnson! 2
This montage of career-choreography by three-time Emmy Award winner Alan Johnson, created for his Lifetime Achievement recognition at the American Choreography Awards, features snippets from Mel Brooks movies, Johnson’s television appearances and stage and commercial work. The clips give evidence of the choreographer’s clean, classic jazz style, his smooth elegance and strong sense of line. ...
Merry Christmas, Adolf! ~ love, TCM 3
Achtung, baby! Righteous programming, this Christmas night, from Turner Classic Movies: choreographer/director Alan Johnson’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1984), a remake of the Lubitsch political satire, well selected on this day of off-the-grid distribution of North Korea spoof, “The Interview.” Johnson and the great Mel Brooks collaborated on this promotional video for the ...
Walk this way … to “Young Frankenstein”‘s 40th birthday party
Aug
25
2014
As the young Doctor (“Frankensteen“) has now advanced to prime middle age, his story, told with pinpoint historic accuracy in the great Mel Brooks movie spoof, “Young Frankenstein” (1974), will spool at the Academy in celebration of his fortieth birthday this year. Brooks, twice that age, will submit to interview by Leonard Maltin at the ...
TCM Fest: “Frankenstein’s gonna bite me and kill me,” said 5-year-old Mel Brooks 1
Apr
14
2012
In conversation with Turner Classic Movies creative exec, Tom Brown, prior to the TCM Fest screening of his great comedy classic, Young Frankenstein (1974), director Mel Brooks dug deep into his memory bank. Asked by Brown what spurred his ribald take-off of the James Whale horror flick, Brooks recalled: “In 1931, I was five years ...
Mel Brooks & Carl Reiner, still kings of comedy 1
Jul
25
2010
“We didn’t know if they were after Communists, Jews, or just short people.” With that great one-liner, Mel Brooks, the funniest man in the world, defuses – no, ridicules – the McCarthy hearings and blacklist that terrorized the entertainment industry in the early 1950s. Together with his longtime friend and indispensable straight-man, Carl Reiner, Mel ...