From the Rental Vault: High Anxiety

In High Anxiety, Mel Brooks finally steps out to lead one of his films after many years as a writer and producer. The previous year, he'd brought the silent movie back to the big screen with Silent Movie, but in Anxiety, he led the cast and spoke out loud. 

Anxiety is an homage/spoof of suspense films, particularly the suspense movies of Alfred Hitchcock. Brooks' character, Richard H. Thorndyke, has just been selected to head The Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous. Although he himself is a brilliant psychotherapist, Thorndyke suffers from "high anxiety," a form of acrophobia that leaves him debilitated when he is in high places. The same affliction torments Jimmy Stewart's character in Hitchcock's Vertigo. Other Hitchcock references crop up throughout the movie, albeit with a Brooks twist. Thorndyke is at one point attacked by pigeons, as the residents of Bodega Bay were attacked by several species of birds in The Birds. Fortunately for Thorndyke but unfortunately for his suit, this flock does not attack with their beaks but rather in a more traditional form of avian assault.

Thorndyke learns that not all is as it seems at the Institute, and that there may be a scheme afoot run by the villainous Nurse Diesel (Chloris Leachman) and her toady, Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman). Before he can get to the bottom of things, though, he is set up as a murderer and must race to clear his name and save the life of wealthy industrialist Arthur Brisbane, held prisoner at the Institute. He is helped (more or less) by Brisbane's daughter Victoria (Madeline Kahn) and by his chauffeur, Brophy (Ron Carey).

Not all of the gags measure up; the twisted relationship between Nurse Diesel and Dr. Montague isn't as funny as Brooks seems to think it is, and Charlie Callas' role as a patient who think's he's a dog runs out of laughs long before it runs out of screen time. But it's obviously as affectionate a spoof of the suspense genre as Young Frankenstein was of monster movies and Blazing Saddles was of Westerns. And it's mostly effective even if it isn't as inspired as those two high points. In 1977, Brooks still commanded quite a bit of his comedic powers and he utilized a skilled group of players who showed off their own talents as well as his. The Brooks who could only echo some of his earlier efforts, who would inflict Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Dracula: Dead and Loving It on the world, was still some 20 years in the future.