Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder have collaborated several 'unique' comedies ever made, but some of those movies were better than others. Wilder’s zany acting style has always worked well with Brooks’ chaotic, anything-goes comedic sensibility. Whatever absurdist scenario Brooks threw at Wilder, the actor could find the truth and humanity in it. Brooks developed strong, long-running working relationships with a number of his actors – including Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, and Harvey Korman – but there was something special about his dynamic with Wilder. Comedically, they were always on the same page; they even wrote together.
From Willy Wonka to various Richard Pryor sidekicks to the doctor who falls in love with a sheep in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Wilder played many hilarious roles throughout his career. But Wilder’s talents never shined brighter than when he was playing three-dimensionally ludicrous characters like nervous ant Leo Bloom and conceited scientist Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronk-un-steen”) in Brooks’ movies. All three of Brooks and Wilder’s collaborations did make quite an impact on the world, but some are more talked about than others.
3 The Producers
Wilder scored the first major role of his movie career in Brooks’ directorial debut, The Producers. The movie is a pitch-perfect lampoon of show business and its prioritization of moneymaking over creativity. When they determine that theatrical investors will distance themselves from a box office bomb and leave their money in the pockets of the company, a small-time Broadway producer (Zero Mostel) and his neurotic ant (Wilder) try to put on the most tasteless show imaginable: a musical tribute to Adolf Hitler called Springtime for Hitler.
The Producers is one of the most daring comedies ever made. From Look Who’s Back to Jojo Rabbit, Hitler has become a pretty common comedic target for shock laughs. However, Brooks was treading on mostly uncharted satirical territory in the 1960s. The Producers was released just over 20 years after the end of World War II, when many moviegoers still had fresh memories of the terrifying time and the Führer’s terrifying reign. Since the tastelessness of the humor is the point of the joke, The Producers landed perfectly. Its widespread acclaim has garnered a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 7.5 IMDb rating.
The Producers was mostly a hit with critics (although there were a few dissenting reviewers who didn’t appreciate its subject matter). It was also an Academy favorite, earning Brooks an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and Wilder a nomination for Best ing Actor. While The Producers is a stellar debut that instantly established Brooks and Wilder as two of the most formidable comedic talents in Hollywood, it seems tame in comparison to the other movies they went on to make. The Producers introduced a unique satirical perspective, but that perspective wouldn’t truly shine until Brooks took aim at specific genres and broke down the art of cinema itself.
2 Young Frankenstein
Brooks told the pitched him the idea for Young Frankenstein on the set of Blazing Saddles. Wilder won Brooks over with a simple yet ingenious elevator pitch: “What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever?” After Blazing Saddles was finished, the two got to work on their first shared screenwriting credit and the result was a timeless comedy classic. Young Frankenstein has an impressive IMDb rating of 8.0 and a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%.
Young Frankenstein isn’t just a hilarious spoof of the Universal Monsters movies; with Tesla coils and practical monster makeup shot on grainy black-and-white film, it’s also a spot-on recreation of their old-school horror aesthetic. Wilder brings his usual neurotic shtick to the role of Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, but also captures the hubris that formed the thematic backbone of Mary Shelley’s original story. Named by Quentin Tarantino as a perfect movie, Young Frankenstein has some of the most iconic gags in the history of the comedy genre. When Dr. Frankenstein unveils his monster to the scientific community, they perform a rendition of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”
Brooks and Wilder shared an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Young Frankenstein, but lost to Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo for The Godfather Part II. As great as their Young Frankenstein script is, it loses some of its sharpness in the third act when the movie becomes a lowbrow bedroom farce. Still, right up to that crass turn in the final reel, Young Frankenstein is a spot-on spoof of classic horror movies, full of quotable lines, hysterical performances, and unforgettable sight gags, like the ever-shifting hump of Marty Feldman’s Igor.
1 Blazing Saddles
Although Blazing Saddles accrued an 89% approval score (making this one of Brooks and Wilder’s lowest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes after it received mixed reviews upon its release due to the racist language and attitudes that pervade in the plot), the movie is considered a cornerstone of film comedy. Cleavon Little stars as a Black sheriff who’s hired by a corrupt governor in a bid to sabotage an Old West town so it can be torn down to make way for a railroad. However, the sheriff turns out to be so great at his job that he saves the town and takes on the crooked politician and his goons.
Blazing Saddles is a biting satire of westerns, lampooning the genre’s racial prejudices and the inherent phoniness of pampered Hollywood actors playing gritty, tough-as-nails, gun-toting heroes. Wilder plays the sheriff’s trusty sidekick, a gunfighter known as “The Waco Kid,” who helps his friend maintain order (making up one of American cinema’s first “buddy cop” duos). This friendship brings real heart to a movie that never misses an opportunity for a laugh. Blazing Saddles’ meta humor was ahead of its time. Even today, few films dare to break the fourth wall as brazenly as Blazing Saddles did. Its story is strong enough to a straightforward western, but Blazing Saddles goes a step further and deconstructs itself.
Unlike Young Frankenstein, the delightfully self-aware Blazing Saddles doesn’t run out of steam. In fact, it gets even better. The climactic showdown spills over into the next lot and the casts of various movies get into a food fight in the studio cafeteria. Then, the heroes go to Mann’s Chinese Theater to see how their adventure ends. Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder's Blazing Saddles is inventive and laugh-out-loud funny right up to the closing shot, which points out the artifice of the genre one last time as the cowboys ride off into the sunset, only to quickly dismount their horses and head back to their hotel in a lavish limousine.
