Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Takeshi-K If you like a liberal display of toilet humor and sexual innuendo in a silly campy comedy film, this is the movie for you. What makes Mel Brooks' films unique is a sense of good clean fun. In the world of Brooksian comedy, the good are heroic and the nasty get whats coming to them. Brooks pitches popular low brow comedy to the masses and hits every time. This movie is structured around certain famous periods in history starting with caveman days moving on to biblical times, then ancient rome and so on until ending in the 17th century with the rule of King Louis of France.Don't take it seriously and you will be sure to enjoy it.

tavm After 30 years, I finally got to see the entirety of Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I and I gotta say, I found most of it funny though I can understand why many critics were offended by much of it. There are quite a few scatological jokes from Dom DeLuise burping and farting in the Roman sequence to Harvey Korman's peeing in the French Revolution segment. And then there's Mel Brooks, who not only produced and directed this, but also single-handedly wrote it and stars in most of the sketches. Seeing him doing the Spanish Inquisition as a Busby Berkeley-Esther Williams number was perhaps the most irreverent thing he ever did especially when the nuns doff their uniforms to reveal their one-piece swimsuits and bathing caps! Gregory Hines made his film debut here and is a hoot whether doing his dance steps in order to keep him from trouble or making a giant joint to distract the Roman guards! Madeline Kahn and Cloris Leachman also contribute their funny selves to good effect and then there's longtime Brooks associate Sid Ceasar playing a cave man in the Stone Age segment also being his usual funny self. Really, all I'll say now is if you are a die-hard Brooks fan, I highly recommend History of the World, Part I.

jzappa Comic perspective is usually determined in the opening moments of a funny movie, establishing the rules of the new world and hooking the audience. Well, History of the World Part I begins with cavemen waking up and humping air for what feels like a solid 2 minutes. This is his Dawn of Man segment, a vague parody of Kubrick's 2001, before he moves on to The Stone Age during which the first art critic is sent up, and then mocks Moses in an Old Testament sketch, which is essentially a single joke that we fade into and out of that quickly. Where Brooks really goes to town is during The Roman Empire. He stars as a "stand-up philosopher" who, along with a black slave played by Gregory Hines and a defiant vestal virgin, brings pandemonium to the court of the extraordinarily hilarious Emperor Nero, in one of Dom DeLuise's most memorable performances, and Madeleine Kahn, his nymphomaniac empress.We're actually surprised when the movie moves on, because it seems to have decided to develop some semblance of a story there, unlike its preceding episodes. But it does, and Brooks again takes center stage as Torquemada, who celebrates his ecstatic pleasure in torturing Jews who reject Christianity in a Busby Berkeley tableau abounding with melody, singing, and a water ballet. Oh, and a funny little aside elucidates some unanswered questions about how Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Last Supper. Ultimately, Harvey Korman steals the spotlight from Brooks, as per usual, in an absurd caricature of The French Revolution. Korman plays foppish nobleman Count De Monet, who turns up with a cunning plot to save King Louis XVI from death at the hands of the mob by switching the King's lowly doppelganger on the crucial occasion.This is an incoherent, disorderly, sometimes awkward romp by one of the most talented comic filmmakers, who never seems to have a clear idea of the underlying principle of his seventh film escapade, so there's no assertive narrative incentive to bear it along. His historical context doesn't have any method or perspective. It's basically just an assembly line for whatever jokes he can sling on it. What is this off-the-wall grab bag? Is it a lampoon of old Biblical, Roman and French historical epics? From time to time. Is it a never-to-be-repeated, comedy vaudeville seizure? Now and then. Is it a send-up trained at haughty foils? Every so often. But generally it's in essence simply valuable sets standing there expecting Brooks to do something comical before them.Synchronously with Woody Allen, Brooks has helped sustain the comedy genre in contemporary films. As Allen has turned increasingly sophisticated and contemplative, Brooks has gotten increasingly campy and preposterous, the politically incorrect auteur and effortless ham actor's rudimentary oomph let loose flat out with this outrageous 1981 package picture, in which---rather than taking razor-sharp bites out of status quo mythologies and nostalgic legends as he did with his crowning achievements Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein---he indulges in our incessant need for mocking the sort of unconsciously class-based theories of manners and good form that inadvertently made burlesque all the rage in its puritan heyday. As in all movies by the ambitious Brooks, there are dull patches where the farce and the gags just don't work. But hit-or-miss is his style, so when he does hit, he hits the bullseye. Or at least somewhere in the red or yellow.

alvabass I saw this movie at the cinema in 1983, when I was 16 years old. Actually, most of my school mates saw it as well, and we couldn't talk about anything else: It was an extremely funny and hilarious movie! Every single detail caused us to crack up, from the monkeys at the beginning to the Jews at the end.Now, I've just got to see it again on DVD. I was very enthusiastic about it but... Meh! One and a half hours wasted in my life. I barely could stand it. The gags resulted so dumb to me.I don't want to rate this movie because I'll be unfair for sure. It's just a matter of perspective: For a 16-year old in 1983, it's a really funny movie. For a 43-year old in 2010, it is certainly not. : = (For comedies that have stood the test of time (off the top of my head), check "Top Secret!", Steve Martin's "All Of Me" and the French "Les Sous-Doués Passent Le Bac".