Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man: Judd Apatow’s Tribute To A Living Comedy Legend

Judd Apatow has worshipped comedy for most of his life, and it shows in his own work. Particularly in his comedy films. While still acting as a producer on a good number of films, Apatow has spent close to the last decade documenting his comedy heroes. His latest documentary, Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man is about one of the greatest comedy directors of our time. Broken up into two parts, Apatow balances the good and bad, along with the highs and lows in Brooks’ life. His admiration for comedians of the past keeps them relevant in a culture where that label is as finite as people consume their comedy in bites and not bits.

Beginnings

The first half delves into Brooks’s early life. Despite being one of the funniest people in film history, he had a bit of a tragic life. Losing his dad at the age of two, his mom raised him and his brothers until each of them went off to fight Hitler in WWII. Once he returned, he continued what would be the beginning of his professional life.

This is where the doc pivots to Brooks meeting some of the most important people of his life, including Carl Reiner and Sid Caesar. Starting in TV with “Your Show of Shows,” Mel crossed paths with some of Hollywood’s not-yet-bigger names like Neil Simon and Woody Allen. You always get the impression that Mel wanted more than TV even with being in this fraternity of great writers.

Apatow makes it clear that despite the many highs in Brooks’ professional career, there were a lot of lows, which I think he presents better than Mel did in his own book about his life, All About Me. While that book does mention some of his failures, one that seems to be overlooked was his failed Robin Hood show, “When Things Were Rotten,” which eventually became the basis for his early 1990s film, “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”

While Brooks’ first two films, “The Producers” and “The Twelve Chairs,” were critically praised, with The Producers earning him a writing Oscar, they both landed with a thud amongst crowds. While it shows his resilience, we also get this side of Brooks that he isn’t known for: depressive. These early failures led to his first divorce and sometimes strained relationship with his kids given that only two of his three kids from his first marriage appear in the documentary.

Mel Catches His Footing

Part two begins with Brooks’ rise to the top: the meat of the films he’s known for and the risks he took with them. Whether it be his song and dance routine recounting the Spanish Inquisition, parodying Hitler to look like a buffoon, or not backing down from the racist language in “Blazing Saddles.” He was right to criticize the history of each of these. However, there was pushback from people who didn’t think it was appropriate. This is one of the things that I appreciate that Apatow does in these docs: he gets into the comedian’s head and explains their processes.

What shines through both parts is the love that Mel had for his friends, but more so his second wife, Anne Bancroft. We get the story of the unlikely pair’s meeting, along with several appearances they made together on talk shows, both planned and surprised. The depiction of their public life is the type of thing people nowadays would hashtag as relationship goals.

With Brooks still being alive, there’s no ambiguity to his story’s end. He made many friends throughout his career, but most of them and his collaborators have passed away at this point. Carl Reiner’s presence in Mel’s life is also shown lovingly and depicts them as the best of friends up until Reiner’s death. Death looms largely in this second half.

Brooks is still working to the best of his abilities in his 90s, opting to produce and perform and leaving the directing to someone else, as was the case with the recent “History of the World, Part Two” and the forthcoming “Spaceballs” sequel. While his capacity is probably more or less as a guide for tone, I imagine it’s very hard to say no to Brooks, who still seems pretty sharp.

Grade: Solid 8/10

This is the third documentary that Judd Apatow has made about one of his comedy heroes. With his first two about Garry Shandling and George Carlin. This jump to living comedy legend was a good choice. The advantage being this time around is that his subject can participate in person and not via clips. If you know Apatow’s past, interviewing comedians has essentially been his life’s work. If he stopped now, this feels like it would be his magnum opus. However, it seems as if Apatow will emulate the subject for this project and work until he can no longer. You can watch Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man on HBO or HBO Max.

Check Out Forrest’s review of John Candy: I Like Me.

What are some of your favorite Mel Brooks’ movies?