Rating: 
Summary: great movie
Review: Since i saw this film the first time in 1984, it is still the film i most talk about. Every scene in this movie set you of laughing. From the start with 2001 a space.... till Hitler on ice, ( the foney trailer at the end) you will have tears on your in your eyes.
Rating: 
Summary: Brooks' "History" Doesn't Deliver (One Afterbirth's Opinion)
Review: "Do you wanna dance?"It used to be such a funny line. We'd laugh ourselves silly, pretending to be Roman centurions inhaling pot smoke, taking turns saying the line: "Do you wanna dance?" We'd say it with the same faux-hippie lilt that Shecky Greene used, smooth and adrift. We'd pretend that macho men suddenly wanting to dance with each other was not homophobic... but hilarious! We used to be so young, and this movie was so fresh and funny. So what happened? We grew up. And Mel Brooks' little comedy didn't. Now don't get me wrong. Scatalogical and bigoted humour doesn't generally offend me. If you're racist *and* funny, then you probably have a point to make. You're a satirist. However, if you're racist and unfunny, then your point is lost, or irrelevant. Then you're just racist. More often than not, the latter is true here. The history of Mel Brooks' filmmaking career says that his best work came during the late sixties and early seventies, when "The Producers", "Young Frankenstein", and "Blazing Saddles" cornered the market on comedy. Each was smartly written, realistically acted (in context, of course), and narrowly focussed. This combination worked well, creating three bitingly funny satires, still considered classics of the genre. Sadly, by the time the seventies ended, and the eighties began, Brooks' seemed to have forgotten the lessons he learned. Case in point: "History of the World: Part 1". It's sure not smartly written, by today's standards anyway. Many of the most memorable jokes are only moderately funny due to excessive repetition. The film's most famous line, "It's good to be the king", is said maybe half a dozen times during the last sketch, 'The French Revolution'. "Hey, I remember that joke from the first time I chuckled at it," is Brooks' desired response from the audience. "Maybe I should laugh again, only harder this time!" The repeated reemergence of Miracle the horse, which wasn't funny the first time, and the pronounciation of Count de Monet's name, which was, are both beaten into the ground via the same technique. It gets tiresome quickly. To be fair, there are some moments of witty wordplay; if you have a machete and some patience you might find them. "With the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth -- the critic", from the Prehistoric Man segment, is but one example. The Roman Empire section is chock full of quick, blink-and-you'll-miss them jokes, the kind that should have been peppered throughout the film. "Buffet and Orgy: First Served, First Come" reads one side. "You're nuts! N-V-T-S nuts!" says Ron Carey's character, Swiftus. "Sic Transit Gloria," says one senator to another, prompting the reply, "I didn't know Gloria was sick." Sure, they're groaners. But they're clever groaners. The acting, even more so than the substandard writing, is a big problem. Brooks gathers around him a group of comedians trying desperately to make the material work. They strain too hard, and the comedy is the first casualty. A better tactic might be the one employed by the "Airplane!" movies: super-serious actors, delivering hilarious material, with straight faces. That's a lethal comedic combination. Here we get Sid Caeser's furious mugging, Charlie Callas' gross facial contortions, and Greene's over-acting. Madeline Khan, usually dependable and understated, is a mess here. Her annoying double-takes and piercing voice makes this wonderful comedienne difficult to watch. Dom DeLuise's performance typifies everything that's wrong with this movie. Just when you think he's got a sly take on an idea -- his Caeser is a gluttonous, flatulant, apathetic dictator -- he goes overboard with the facial contortions and the buffoonish slapstickery. DeLuise more often than not gets his character right, but when it's wrong, it's just embarassing to watch. There are some performers here who turn in fine work. Cloris Leachmann does a raucous, but low-key, turn as the leader of a group of French insurgents. They're condemned to an existnece without a language, "just a stupid accent... we all talk like Maurice Chevalier!" Harvey Korman is amusing as a French Count. And Brooks, for the most part does well with his acting. A brief turn as Moses, bickering under his breath with God, is the movie's highlight. And he's tailor-made for the part of Comicus, the Roman stand-up philospher who gets his big break: playing Caeser's Palace. The broad focus of the film, trying on too many ideas that aren't fleshed-out enough to really smoke, also hurts the film. It might have worked if Brooks had stuck just with the Roman scenes, or further developed the ideas he lays forth during the Spanish Inquisition. But instead he spreads everything too thin. The Spanish Inquisition scenes could have been great. Brooks plays a singing-and-dancing Torquemada, resplendent in a plush red robe and a goofy grin. He dances around the torture chamber, singing one of the film's many fine songs. It's accompanied by a ridiculous Busby-Berkley-style musical number. I wanted to see more of Torquemada. The idea of Brooks, the archetypal Jewish comedian, as the Grand Inquisitor is an idea too good to waste. Sadly, the film does, in favour of a number of more tepid ideas. Maybe my eyes, accustomed to more sophisticated comedies in the intervening years, have soured on Brooks schtick. Or maybe his schtick, as presented here, hasn't aged well. I'm inclined to believe the second statement is true, and warn you that if it's good Brooks you seek, you can't go wrong with "The Producers", "Young Frankenstein", or "Blazing Saddles". Don't bother yearning for Brooks' "History", lest you're doomed to repeat it.
Rating: 
Summary: another great one from brooks
Review: This movie is worth it just for the satire of Mel Brooks playing Torquemada. Add in everything else, stone age, rome and Madeline Kahn, french inquisition done in the incredible Mel Brooks style, and you have a winner!
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie Very Funny
Review: This movie was very funny Brooks and Hines were great and went together very well. I highly recomend this movie.
Rating:
Summary: cool
Review: when i saw history of the world part 1 on HBO i knew that i had to buy it on dvd.MEL BROOKS movie are gold,this 1 was awesome and the dvd is awesome
Rating:
Summary: The best way to make history funny!!
Review: Mr. brook's has the best way to make history funny. I know that the Spanish inqusition was a very sad thing but when you have Mel make it into a comedy you can make a sad thing hilarious. I loved all the stupid jokes in it because that is what made it funny. I loved this movie better than Monty Python and the holy Grail, and I loved that movie.
Rating:
Summary: An historical treasure
Review: Mel Brooks combines a wonderful tongue in cheek view of key historical moments. A star studded cast show how history does repeat itself, is absolutely defined by the raconteur and downright silly at times.
Rating:
Summary: The best Mel Brooks movie of all time!
Review: When I rented this movie a couple of weeks ago, I knew it would be funny, but I didn't know it would be a classic. Probably the best part of the movie is The Spanish Inquisition part. I crack up every time I think about it! I also crack up when the King goes skeet shooting ( you'll get it when you see it). The beginning is a bit slow but once you get to the Roman Empire, It's hilarious. Before the Roman Empire, the Moses part is funny and the birth of music is funny, but not as good as the Spanish Inquisition.
I would recommend this movie to anyone who liked Spaceballs and Robin Hood. If you liked Young Frankenstein, there may be too many jokes and not enough plot. All in all, this was a great movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Viciously sick,moronic humor
Review: Imagine yourself: you slept for about 200 or 400 years, just woke up and some of your giggling descendants are dragging you to a comedy show, "hey, grand grand grand daddy, watch this ain it funny" and present you the latest of their day gags - roflmao interpretation of *OUR TIME'S* LATEST tragic events... Once I rented this DVD and watched it, I looked at my movie shelf pondering should I or should I not make one more investment. I am pretty much omnivorous humorwise, can handle equally either a good quality whoopie cushion joke or the best of the traditional victorian Britain's chuckles. I glimpsed over the names and titles on the comic part: Charlie Chaplin, Abbott and Costello, Whoopie Goldberg, "Dumb and Dumber".... I found there no place for Mel Brooks who's apparently trying to appoint himself for our Nation's Comedian General office. The Spanish Inquisition has been BURNING people alive, in the name of the God who preached "turning other cheek" - you find this funny? What those swimsuit beauties are doing in these dungeons, why slot machines, why Jews, the Inquisition made no distinction between the Catholic faithful, the Catholic heretics, the Jews, prosecuted all more or less equally, why? Now the French Revolution, very controversial, complicated, painful times. Like inside a tornado, there were points below freezing and there were points white hot, rolling along with springs, rivers and lakes of fresh human blood spotting the timeline... So you find a guillotine funny? How about an electric chair - is it funny to you too? Gallows anyone? Boeing 767? I would forgive such insensitivity to an innocent child, children are often cruel without realizing it. They would stick a straw into a dragon fly's tail and giggle over it, but would you approve if your children did that? Bottom line - I don't believe Mr Brooks qualifies for the office of the U.S. Buffon General, even without that cruel imagination. Most of his humor has the center of gravity just a bit below the waist and further below.
Rating: 
Summary: Mel goes for easy laughs
Review: It was funnier when I was 17. Mel relies heavily on body part and body function humor here, although there are still plenty of genuine laughs to be found in his trademark use of anachronism, wordplay, and general silliness. It is a treat to see some of the great names from comedy variety shows: Sid Caesar, Shecky Greene, Henny Youngman, and Harvey Korman all deliver the in the styles that made them famous. This is a bare-bones DVD: no director's commentary, no stereo sound, no extra featurettes, but like all DVDs, it has the ability to skip directly to a scene. This is a great plus in a film of vignettes, especially when the first one is painfully stupid.
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