Movies - History of the World, Part I

Home > Listing Index > Movies > History of the World, Part I

	Movies - History of the World, Part I

History of the World, Part I is a 1981 film directed by Mel Brooks. Brooks wrote the screenplay and stars in the film, playing five roles: Moses, Comicus the stand-up philosopher, Tomás de Torquemada, King Louis XVI, and Jacques le garçon de pisse. The large ensemble cast also features Sid Caesar, Shecky Greene, Gregory Hines, and Brooks regulars Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman among many others, including cameo appearances by Bea Arthur, Hugh Hefner, John Hurt, Jackie Mason, Paul Mazursky and Henny Youngman, with a narration by Orson Welles.

Tagline: A little something to offend everyone...

Story

The film's story, such as it is, is a parody of "historical spectacular" cinematic genre, including the "sword and sandal epic" and the "period costume drama" subgenres. The four main segments of the film consist of stories set during the Dawn of Man, the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition (as a Busby Berkeley-esque song-and-dance number) and the French Revolution. Between the Dawn of Man and the Roman Empire sequences there is also a very short clip called "The Old Testament," which shows Moses receiving fifteen commandments from God, then dropping a tablet ("Oy!") and declaring them to be only Ten Commandments.

At the very end of the film there is a teaser-trailer for History of the World: Part II, which promises to feature a Viking funeral, Hitler on Ice, and Jews in Space. The melody for the "Jews in Space" song was later recycled by Brooks for the "Men in Tights" musical number in Robin Hood: Men in Tights
. The music that underscores the Viking Funeral segment is Vorobyaninov's Theme, composed for an earlier Brooks film called The Twelve Chairs.

No sequel was actually planned, however: the "Part 1" of the film's title is an obscure historical joke. The History of the World was a book written by Sir Walter Raleigh while prisoner in the Tower of London. He had only managed to complete the first volume before being beheaded.

On several occasions in the film, a character exclaims that "only a miracle can save us now!" At which point a white stallion (named "Miracle") gallops in and carries the characters off to safety.

"It's good to be the King."

This popular catch phrase comes from its repeated use in the French Revolution segment. Brooks, as Louis XVI, says it bluntly directly to the camera on several occasions as if to justify the King's wanton behavior. Brooks also portrays "Le Garçon de Pisse" ("The Lowly Pissboy"), who carries a bucket for the royals to urinate into and later impersonates the King. Brooks as Le Garçon delivers the same line with a sense of surprise when he gets to sample the King's luxurious lifestyle for the first time. The line would be used by Brooks twice more: once in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, when King Richard (Patrick Stewart) kisses Maid Marian), and again in his stage musical version of his own film, The Producers, as a lyric in a musical number about a Broadway producer title "The King of Broadway."

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for History of the World, Part I ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article History of the World, Part I; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay