This Is How Mel Brooks Kept the Crew From Laughing While Making ‘Blazing Saddles’
Working as a crew member on Mel Brooks’ classic comedies probably wasn’t the easiest job in the world — and not just because a sound guy tragically died during a freak lightsaber accident on the set of Spaceballs.
Since laughter could easily ruin a take, folks working behind the camera had to stifle their chuckles even when making famously hilarious movies like Young Frankenstein and History of the World, Part 1. But Brooks had an ingenious method for keeping giggle-prone crew members in line when he was directing 1974’s Blazing Saddles.
Brooks spoke with The Aquarian back in 2013, and fielded questions sent in by fans. When asked which film was the toughest to shoot because of on-set laughter, the director immediately cited his Western spoof. “Blazing Saddles was pretty damn funny,” Brooks argued. “The crew was constantly cracking up and ruining takes.”
“I sent my assistant to Woolworths to buy a thousand white handkerchiefs,” the Look Who’s Talking Too star continued. “I gave one to everybody on the set. I told them, ‘If you feel like laughing at something, you stick one of these in your mouth, bite on it, and laugh through it.’”
The handkerchief ploy wasn’t just an effective tool for recording laugh-free audio, it became a way for Brooks to gauge the effectiveness of the film’s jokes. “Anytime I wasn’t sure whether a scene was working or not, I’d look over my shoulder, and if I saw a lot of white handkerchiefs, I’d know it was funny. That became my litmus test,” Brooks noted. “The crew’s laughing could’ve ruined the picture, but we saved it with the white handkerchiefs. It also turned out to be a great way to test to see if something was funny.”
This wasn’t the first time that Brooks employed the handkerchief tactic. In other interviews, he’s claimed to have bought handkerchiefs for the crew during the production of Young Frankenstein and The 12 Chairs, both of which preceded Blazing Saddles. The 12 Chairs shoot was likely the first to incorporate this strategy, seeing as how Brooks specifically noted that the handkerchiefs weren’t “very expensive in Yugoslavia.”
They were of particular benefit on Blazing Saddles because Brooks wanted the actors to improvise, and he used the handkerchiefs as a way to encourage them to let loose. “I would say — you know, to Cleavon or to Slim or to Harvey especially — to anybody in the movie and even to myself sometimes, ‘Say whatever comes into your head in addition to the script,’” Brooks recalled. “We can’t throw the crew. If they feel like laughing, they’re gonna shove those white handkerchiefs in their mouths, you know?”
As far as we know, no animators or sound recordists had to use handkerchiefs while working on the family-friendly CGI Blazing Saddles remake.
Source link
