Mel Brooks not a terribly nice man?

Mel Brooks annoying Sid Ceasar.

I've heard a few things over the years. That Young Frankenstein was Gene Wilder's idea and he was supposed to have his name over the title, but Mel Brooks stole full credit. You notice Wilder never worked with him again. Now I read that Buck Henry felt he was denied credit as co-creator of Get Smart!

I got that not from the BOOK Funny Man Mel Brooks by Patrick Gilligan, but from a book review. A single book review in The Daily News, so what do I know?

I order a copy from Amazon. If I were a better citizen, I would have gone to a local bookstore and ordered a copy if they didn't have one on hand.

"The crew on Brooks’ first film complained about red-faced rages," the review said.

I had heard a story that Brooks was going to fire his DP on Young Frankenstein. The movie was a comedy so he had lit the set the way they did comedies in those days, with bright even lighting. Brooks was enraged. He wanted it lit like the old horror movie.

I can do it, but you have to tell me, the DP said.

Gene Wilder intervened. He's right, Mel. You've got to tell him.

When the movie was done, Brooks was so pleased with the results that he told the guy he was glad he didn't fire him.

He didn't say it, but the DP was thinking that Brooks was lucky he didn't quit.

Could it be that Mel Brooks wasn't an especially nice person?

When he worked as writer for Your Show of Shows, "The producer and most of the staff hated Brooks — a 'talking writer,' they sneered, someone who shouted out gags but couldn’t finish a sketch. Caesar hired him anyway. Caesar, who later signed Neil Simon and Woody Allen, had an eye for talent."

Also mentioned the puny allowance he gave his first wife while he was raking in huge paychecks as head writer, how he was running around with other women and taking pills and drinking heavily causing wild mood swings.

Woody Allen seems like a pretty nice guy now, doesn't he?

But, like I say, all I read was the review.

It's sort of interesting looking at his filmography on imdb.com that his period of peak success only lasted a few years, between Blazing Saddles and Silent Movie.

I remember those days well. An interviewer asked Brooks why he didn't try making a drama and he said it was because he and Woody Allen were the only ones who knew how to make a comedy. That was before The History of the World Part One and Robin Hood: Men In Tights. High Anxiety was the transition between those two periods in his career.