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Decent Quality Since 1847

Babbling Brooks

6/25/2014

2 Comments

 
The other day, I was listening to the classical music station KUSC-FM, and they were playing Brahms Hungarian Dance #4.  My friend Rich Capparela was the show's host, so I sent him off an email to let him know (in case he didn't), that the music was used by Mel Brooks for the great opening-credit song, "Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst," for his movie The Twelve Chairs, which I posted here a while back.

I wanted to send Rich a link to the song, so I did a search to track it down again.  And I came across this.  It's from the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Mel Brooks.  If you haven't seen this, it's a joy -- a nine-minute montage of some of the wonderful Mel Brooks songs in his movies and stage musical.  The particular treat for me is that it's introduced and lead into by Frank Langella, who was the star of The Twelve Chairs -- a movie I dearly love, which is among the lesser-known of Mel Brooks' portfolio.  But an equally big treat in this production number is that they included "Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst" in it, a song which I suspect most people don't know.

It's fun too to seeing Brooks occasionally singing along with the performers..

(By the way, when they get to The Producers and -- well, you know what song -- the performer who joins in the song mid-way through and sings his own number is Gary Beach.  He's no doubt the least-known of all the people in the number, but he won a Tony Award for this part, playing the director Roger DeBris in the Broadway production of the show.)

And to the credit of whoever put this together, the song they end with is surprisingly not the one you'd expect, for the Big Finish, but a small song from the stage show of The Producers which, I think, is the perfect choice.  And from Mel Brooks' reaction, that appears to be the case.  Along with a nice, "choreographic" touch at the very end.
2 Comments
Douglass Abramson
6/25/2014 11:56:29 am

That is one of the better tributes that they've done on the Kennedy Center Honors in recent years. I've never understood why Brooks followed up The Producers with a show that had as many expectations attached to it as Young Frankenstein. I thought that a musical adaption. by Brooks, of The Twelve Chairs would have been a smart choice. Like The Producers, its not very well known outside of Brooks' fans and he already had a strong script and a solid song to springboard off of. Oh, well. It won't happen now. The weak reception that Young Frankenstein (Which would have been the last of his projects that I'd adapt.) received; Brooks and the big investors seem to have grown cold to adapting his work from other media to Broadway.

Reply
Robert Elisberg
6/25/2014 03:56:43 pm

Once upon a time, the musical tributes at the Kennedy Center Honors were extravaganzas of great creativity and surprise. I agree that they'll fallen into the ordinary for a long time, and that this one was one of the better of recent years.

As for what musical to have done next, for better or worse the whole point of adapting movies into musicals is to find properties that were big hits. Few producers would want to risk multi-millions on a movie adaptation that flopped. So, I suspect that was a non-starter. And honestly, much as I love "The Twelve Chairs," I don't think it cries out to be sung. Whether or not "Young Frankenstein" worked or not, I can't say, not having seen it.

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    Robert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 

    Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, and two best-selling novels, is a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and was for
    the Huffington Post.  Among his other writing, he has a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel.  As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.

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