High Anxiety

1977 psycho-comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A new director, who himself suffers from high anxiety, arrives at a mental institution where strange goings-on appear to be taking place.

The ratio of amusing moments to moments that just fall completely flat isn't good at all, and there's nothing close to hysterically funny in this comedy. At least there's nothing horribly dated in this with the exception of an early gay joke. The Hitchcock parodies are mostly on-the-nose. There are few verbal allusions, a Psycho shower scene that children probably could have put together, a too-obvious Vertigo climax that you know is coming once you see the first shot of the institution, and a Birds parody that almost works. I think the best gag might be a a plot complication that results from a phone call from a Mr. McGuffin.

The players are better than the material, especially Cloris Leachman as a malevolent nurse who makes fruit cup threats. Mel Brooks starred in this, and it might have been better with Gene Wilder even though Brooks' musical number is cute enough.