Songs and Scores in the Films of Mel Brooks: The Collaboration with John Morris

Abstract

Kindred comedic and musical spirits writer-director Mel Brooks and composer-arranger John Morris forged an enduring collaboration spanning twenty-four years, exemplified by such iconic comedies as The Producers (1967, dir. Mel Brooks), Blazing Saddles (1974, dir. Mel Brooks), and Young Frankenstein (1974, dir. Mel Brooks). Both creators’ personas were indelibly shaped by their early professional work, from within the environs of live performance, television and Broadway musicals. Brooks, a celebrated EGOT winner, and Morris, equally diverse and respected within the profession, delighted in working within parodic forms. This chapter examines the creative synergy of Brooks–Morris, imbued by analyses of scenes that reveal innovative approaches to narrative and musical conventions: codes, gestures, and idiomatic musical forms. Moreover, Morris’s music was buoyed by Mel Brooks, the polymath—writer, actor, songwriter—and bastion for social remediation. For such title songs as ‘Blazing Saddles’, Morris answered to the requirements of musical genre and shaped a score arising from creative and critical discourse around racial injustice.

I thank Ira Newborn for his conversations and insights concerning this chapter, and for our innumerable discussions about music and comedy over the past twenty years. I also wish to thank Jennifer Rowekamp for her sharp, dedicated assistance in editing this chapter.