﻿ Movie Mashup (1976)  Silent Movie (1976)   Mel Brooks has
never exactly been a master of subtlety. He’s also never known
when a joke is worthy of a five-minute bit and when it’s
something you can flesh out into a full length feature.  Silent
Movie is exactly what it says in the title: An honest to God
silent film. In fact, it’s a silent film about the making of a
silent film. Brooks plays, basically, himself, a movie producer
who’s trying to get funding for the first silent film in 40
years. The studio is on the verge of bankruptcy, and our hero
attempts to save the studio by rustling up Hollywood’s biggest
stars to appear in the show. They play themselves and, indeed,
represent some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.  Ultimately the
film has little to do with this setup: It quickly becomes a
platform for Brooks to make slapstick jokes that have little or
nothing to do with the film at large. A guy is (seemingly) run
over by a steamroller. A Pong game plays out with out-there
sound effects. Brooks pokes fun at H