MEL AS MENTOR Part Three

JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY (1984: Dir. Amy Heckerling)

Sometimes you come across a film at a certain time of life that just hits you right in the funny bone. Johnny Dangerously was such a movie, and a hit among my gang at university. It may have been the film's infectiously old fashioned absurdity or its mildly risque humor that made it so endlessly quotable for me and my friends. Eschewing the fashionably R-rated raunchiness of the Eighties, including director Heckerling's own Fast Times at Ridgemount High (1982) Johnny Dangerously delivers its high quota of verbal and visually anachronistic gags with a comedic verve that owes its origins to the Borscht-Belt legacy of Mel Brooks, mentor to the film's producer Michael Hertzberg and co-screenwriter Norman Steinberg. Steinberg was a dissatisfied copyright lawyer when a chance meeting with Mel Brooks led to a writing opportunity on Get Smart, the TV spy spoof co-created by Brooks and Buck Henry. This association led to further collaborations with Mel on Blazing Saddles (1974) and When Things Were Rotten (1975), Brooks' fondly remembered though short-lived Robin Hood sitcom. Hertzberg was Mel's former assistant director on The Producers (1968) who went on to produce three of  Brooks' subsequent films: The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles, and Silent Movie (1976). In paying homage to Mel's style, Johnny Dangerously not only milked Steinberg's comical contributions but producer Hertzberg insured its successful silliness by padding the supporting cast with numerous Brooks veterans including Peter Boyle, Ron Carey, Dom DeLuise and Richard Dimitri. Other notable cameos include Jaws scribe Carl Gottleib, Police Academy creator Neal Israel ( Heckerling's then-husband), and Halloween II director Rick Rosenthal. However it is peppy star Michael Keaton as the titular pretty boy toughie who makes the whole thing work, machine gunning his quips with a Cagney-like energy that really sells this as an affectionate send-up of Thirties Warner Bros. gangster pictures. A significant success at the time of its release, it is now more fondly remembered by its fans as the hoodlum parody that Mel never made. DVD REGION 1 & 2