Live at the Geffen
HBO · 2015 · 60 min
Mel Brooks shares showbiz memories and sings a few songs.
At 88 years old, Mel Brooks commands a standing ovation just by walking onstage. The director and writer doesn’t use his HBO special to workshop new material; instead, he offers a relaxed, intimate victory lap through his own life. He shares showbiz anecdotes with the polished timing of a guy who helped invent the modern film parody, mixing in a few musical numbers from High Anxiety and Blazing Saddles along the way.\n\nFilmed at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, the 2015 hour functions as a conversational memoir. Brooks talks about growing up in Brooklyn, his World War II army service, and almost getting fired from Your Show of Shows. He shares stories about his late wife Anne Bancroft and meeting Alfred Hitchcock. The broadcast earned two Emmy nominations, but its best moments are informal rather than theatrical. At one point, his lifelong friend and collaborator Carl Reiner, seated in the audience, simply asks him to imitate a cat, and Brooks obliges.
The set list
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Working as a poolside tummler in the Catskills
Brooks describes dressing up in an alpaca overcoat and derby with suitcases filled with rocks, shouting 'Business is terrible!' and staging a fake drowning suicide to wake up vacationers.
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Courting Anne Bancroft
Brooks details introducing himself with 'Hey Anne Bancroft. I'm Mel Brooks' and relentlessly following her around claiming it was 'kismet' until she told him to stop.
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Military service in World War II
Brooks eschews battle stories to dryly note that his initial entry into show business was postponed 'because Hitler started a war.'
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Childhood inspiration to enter show business
Recounts seeing Cole Porter's 'Anything Goes' in New York at age nine as Melvin Kaminsky and telling his uncle he wanted to do that one day.
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Walking with Neil Simon in New York City
Brooks spots four nuns crossing the street, prompting Simon to make a wry observation about Brooks' inability to let any comedic premise pass by.
How it plays
- Tone
- Affectionate, nostalgic, playful, witty, and sentimental.
- On stage
- Warm, congenial, and self-deprecating elder statesman of Jewish kvetch comedy in a formal tuxedo, embodying the classic vaudeville tradition.
- Pace
- Effortless, seamless storytelling delivery with continuous joke momentum and high enthusiasm despite his advanced age.
- About
- Borscht Belt tummler beginnings, Williamsburg and Brooklyn childhood, Hollywood film career and television writing, Courtship and marriage to Anne Bancroft, Aging, mortality, and Jewish identity
What the critics said
Universally received as delightful, warm comfort food for fans, praising Brooks' boundless comedic sharpness, effortless storytelling elasticity, and charming stage presence, with minor criticism directed at sound mixing and an abundance of singing.
In the room: An adoring, celebratory love-fest marked by preemptive standing ovations and nostalgic sighs.
Backstory
Brooks' first-ever solo one-man stage production, inspired after watching Bette Midler perform at the Geffen Playhouse, marking a reflective personal retrospective on his life and lost contemporaries.
Details
- Released
- Taped
- 2014, Gil Cates Theater at the Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles
- Runtime
- 60 min
- Where
- HBO
- Honors
- Primetime Emmy Awards - 2 Nominations
- Topics
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