The 1977 comedy from Mel Brooks looks at the work of The Master of Suspense: Alfred Hitchcock. Of the movies parodied, Vertigo is the most prominent. Also seen are parodies of The Birds, Psycho, Spellbound, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Tom Curtain, Shadow of a Doubt, The Ring, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Suspicion, Notorious, Under Capricorn, Dial M For Murder, The Wrong Man, Frenzy, Family Plot, Rebecca, and The Lodger: The Story of the London Fog.
(Notable Hitchcock movies not parodied: Strangers on a Train and Rear Window)
Mel Brooks himself plays the lead role of Dr. Thorndyke, the chief psychologist at the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the very VERY Nervous. While there he suspects something is wrong with Dr. Montague and the head nurse Nurse Diesel played by Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman respectively.
With all the suspicion surrounding the Institute, it is also discovered that Dr. Thorndyke suffers from High Anxiety. A condition that causes him to go into panic attacks and lose equilibrium. So, in other words High Anxiety is Vertigo.
My personal favorite scene is either the parody of Psycho or The Birds. In the Psycho parody a highly strung bell boy is asked for a newspaper which ends with the bell boy repeatedly stabbing Dr. Thorndyke in the shower with the paper while screaching "Here's your paper!"
The parody of The Birds has Dr. Thorndyke sitting in a park reading a newspaper when birds start to appear. Leading up to the birds repeatedly pooping on him.
This was Mel Brooks' third film and the first where he had a speaking role as the lead. (His second movie was Silent Movie where nobody talked out loud.) This movie doesn't lack for creativity, a staple of all Mel Brooks movies. If you haven't seen it yet, it is one worth watching. You'll never hear the words "fruit cup" again without laughing.
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