MEL BROOKS: BACK ON THE LAUNCH PAD

We’re on the set of a $22.7-million movie. The director has a lot on his mind.

His script supervisor is at one arm, wondering how many takes of the previous scene to print. His camera operator is at the other arm, proposing a new angle for the next shot. A screenwriter hovers nearby, lobbying for a new line of dialogue. An assistant director wants to know when to release the extras for lunch.

Not only is he director and co-writer of the film, which is loaded with worrisome special effects, but he’s also acting today. He has lines to remember, a fake mustache that keeps coming unglued and two more pages of dialogue to shoot before his grueling 14-hour day is over.

But what is Mel Brooks most worried about? As he races back to the video monitors, he suddenly slams on the brakes, grabbing the arm of a visitor on the set.

“What I really want to know is this,” Brooks demands. “What did (Times film reviewer) Kevin Thomas think was so terrible about ‘To Be or Not to Be’? Why that awful review? Just tell me--what was so wrong with that picture? Can you figure it out?”

Mel Brooks is like a crazy Jewish elephant--he never forgets.

At 60, he’s one of the true kings of comedy. His show-business dossier includes uproarious comedy films (“The Producers” and “Blazing Saddles,” among others), ground-breaking TV (“Your Show of Shows” and “Get Smart,” which he helped to create) and goofy albums (his “2,000-Year-Old Man” collaborations with Carl Reiner). During the ‘80s, his Brooksfilms production company has championed a prestigious array of films, most with impressive young directors, including David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man,” Richard Benjamin’s “My Favorite Year” and David Cronenberg’s “The Fly.”

But comic giants don’t always get much respect, much less Oscar nominations--not if their name isn’t Woody Allen. Despite all his success, Brooks, who started in show business at 14 playing a wizened old man in a Borscht Belt stock-company melodrama, still hungers for appreciation, longs for applause and worries if he can satisfy a fickle new generation of filmgoers.

“Listen, I know that everybody has worn out their welcome--Chaplin, Keaton--everyone has,” he said, his frown carving a row of furrows along his brow. “I’ve had waves of anxiety after a picture hasn’t done so well. I say, ‘It’s over, it’s over, I’ve been replaced by Ivan Reitman!’ ”

Brooks offered a thin smile. “Listen, when the critics kill you, it hurts, at least at the time. But the feeling doesn’t last. I learned a long time ago that it’s the process that counts, not just the result.

“But it does bother you when someone doesn’t like your work.” He laughed, perhaps a bit uneasily. “It confirms your worst fears. You try not to get caught up in it. But sometimes I feel like writing these critics a letter, saying ‘Why so angry? What was there to hate so much?’ I want to tell them, ‘I meant no harm. I only wanted to entertain you.’ ”

George Lucas, eat your heart out.

Open the door to Stage 30 on the Lorimar-Telepictures studio lot and-- voila-- you’re in the future. At least, Hollywood’s version of the future--a 60-foot-high set built to resemble an enormous spaceship. Make that a really biiiiiiiiiig space ship--a 21st-Century Coupe de Ville, the kind of high-tech hot rod that makes the Starship Enterprise look like a rusty old tugboat.

Video display monitors line the walls. Banks of computers crackle with flashing lights. A battalion of white-coated technicians scurry past immense portholes, rushing up a long stairwell to a set of second-story walkways.

Down at the far end of the ship, Brooks paced nervously in front of a stack of video monitors. Dressed in a gray English morning coat, with a matching vest and trousers, Brooks looked like a father about to give away a bride. He’s been making “Spaceballs,” a big-budget sci-fi parody due June 26 from MGM and--perhaps of equal importance--the first film he’s directed in six years.

Brooks had every right to be a bit antsy. After the lukewarm reception to “History of the World (Part I)” (his last directorial effort) and “To Be or Not to Be” (in which he starred with wife Anne Bancroft), the notion of making a $22.7-million comedy with a pair of barely known newcomers in the lead roles is the rough equivalent of boldly going where no man has gone before.

A hit could help Brooks regain his stature as a comic wizard; a flop might make skeptical studio execs wonder whether an aging film maker had finally lost touch with a new generation of moviegoers.

If box-office pressures bothered Brooks, it didn’t show. Scuttling back and forth between the camera and his video playback units--known on the set as the Video Village--Brooks had the steely concentration of a carnival juggler trying to keep half a dozen freshly sharpened swords aloft.

His biggest worry seemed to be a tiny brown object squeezed between his fingertips--a pencil-thin mustache that had a nagging tendency to slip down his lip as he began to sweat under the hot lights. The mustache came with the part, as did the morning coat and trousers. He was getting ready to play President Scroob, the dapper, imperial ruler of the planet Spaceball (his motto: “Scroob the People”).

Nearby, Rick Moranis, the likable “SCTV” alumnus who has a supporting role in the film, was slipping off a huge helmet that topped off a Darth Vader-style costume, which came equipped with heavy silver breastplates and a flowing black cape.

When you’re spending $22.7 million, every delay costs money, and Brooks was eyeing the clock as the crew prepared for another take. “This is just one beat in the movie,” Brooks said impatiently. “Let’s get on with it!”

Before the director could wave everyone into place, Moranis began to lumber away from the cameras, staggering under his heavy costumery.

“Mel, I’ll be back in two minutes--I promise,” he said as he headed for a rear exit.

Brooks looked up from his script. “Where are you going?”

“To (the bathroom),” Moranis shouted from across the set. Brooks groaned: “Why didn’t you go when I went?”

Moranis paused momentarily, just as he headed out a distant door. “You didn’t tell me when you were going.”

Brooks threw up his hands in mock-disgust. “Great,” he boomed. “So now I have to make an announcement?”

The scene: One of the spaceship crew, bored with navigating across distant galaxies, has picked a tape out off a “Mr. Video” rack.

The joke: The video selection consists entirely of past Brooks films, from “The Producers” to “To Be or Not to Be.” (When asked why “Solar Babies,” a recent Brooksfilms flop, wasn’t displayed, Brooks quipped: “It’s on another rack in another universe.”)

The crew member loudly recited each title, lowering his voice to a whisper when he got to “Silent Movie.” After a couple of takes, Brooks turned to Ezra Swerdlow, his co-producer: “You don’t think this is overdoing it a little, do you?”

Swerdlow, a former member of Woody Allen’s production team whose main job seems to be keeping “Spaceballs” from veering off schedule, shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s what we thought,” he said with a grin. “But we didn’t want to say anything.”

Brooks frowned. “Too much, huh?”

Having made his point, Swerdlow went for a laugh. “Maybe you could show a picture of your house too.”

When it comes to humor--self-referential or not--Brooks is a perfectionist. But he also seems keenly aware that comedy is a collaborative art. On his past films, Brooks has worked with legions of writers (from Andrew Bergman to Richard Pryor), and nearly everyone on the “Spaceballs” set gets to offer suggestions.

“Mel will take hours and hours till he’s happy with the smallest detail,” said Moranis who, when he saw Brooks return to the set after a brief delay, his face set deep in concentration, groaned, “Uh-oh, he’s thought of something new.

“If you come back the next day and think of a fresh idea, the whole attitude is--spare no expense,” Moranis continued. “If you think that a velvet chair would be funny in a scene, then Mel will probably say, ‘Right. Let’s get a velvet chair. Now!’ ”

Of course, waiting for those velvet chairs can sometimes throw a film off schedule, which is why Swerdlow hovers nearby, trying (not always successfully) to speed shooting along. “Sometime I do have to stop these guys, because with Mel and Rick--well, they’re so full of ideas that they could go on forever,” Swerdlow explained, relaxing in a director’s chair as Brooks finished a take. “That’s why it’s good that we have Ronny Graham (one of the screenwriters) here. He can remind Mel when he’s getting too far away from the script and losing track of the story line.”

When the shot was completed, Swerdlow leaned over to Brooks, confiding: “We got that one.”

Brooks nodded his head. It was time to move on. Well, almost. Brooks eyed the scene on his video monitors. “That was great,” he said. “Let’s try just one more.”

In the 1930s, long before anyone dreamed up test screenings, the Marx Brothers would try out a new film by performing the script in vaudeville houses before a live audience. If a joke got a laugh, it stayed in. The ones that didn’t were thrown out.

Brooks uses a similar, slightly more sophisticated procedure. “The first draft of ‘Spaceballs’ was 315 pages long,” he said. “It was terrible. We let 50 people read it. I had them put checks by the stuff they liked, X’s by the stuff that didn’t work.”

He shrugged. “Well, the first script was mostly X’s. Then we did a 240-page version. It was about 50-50. Next we did an 180-page version. Finally, we got it down to 126 pages. That’s the one we shot.”

He beamed. “It had a lot more checks than X’s.”

Brooks waved his arm in the air. “I’m not a painter who paints a picture and puts it in his closet. This is a movie. The ultimate editor is the audience. You can’t be anal retentive. I’m not one of these guys who polishes and polishes and ships out 800 prints and has the first screening and then realizes it’s a disaster.

“Comedy is a shared experience. When we put together the rough assemblage, we call it the death cut. We have a screening for the secretaries and some of the people on the lot and what they like--it stays in. And what they don’t laugh at, it’s out!”

Brooks tapped his fingers on his chest. “You have to be able to cut out the line that you love the most, because you may realize later that the humor, or the mood, is just too personal, and it doesn’t play for a larger audience.”

Of course, on the set, no one touches a gag, especially if Brooks is performing it between scenes. One afternoon he was telling the crew a favorite “Blazing Saddles” routine when Ezra Swerdlow stopped by to ask about an upcoming shot.

“Hey, can’t you see I’m telling a joke here,” Brooks complained with mock anger. “What do you think our priority is anyway--getting this shot or letting me finish the joke?”

“Spaceballs” is loaded with comic figures whose names sound suspiciously like characters from “Star Wars” that have been filtered through a balmy Brooksian thesaurus. Daphne Zuniga plays Princess Vespa from Planet Druidia (which makes her a Druish Princess). Her co-star, Bill Pullman, is space mercenary Lone Starr. Moranis is the evil Spaceballs fleet commander, Dark Helmet. There’s also Mawg, a half-man, half-dog (played by John Candy), a Colonel Sandurz (played by George Wyner) and an inter-galactic gangster named Pizza the Hut.

“I was in the middle of writing another film--we called it ‘Scared to Death’--when I walked into the office one day and said, ‘That’s too small an audience. But ‘Spaceballs,’ now that’s a big audience!’ ” Brooks said, spreading his arms wide.

“ ‘Star Wars’ . . . ‘Aliens’ . . . ‘Star Trek’ . . . and now ‘Spaceballs!’ It’s cosmic jujitsu--an irresistible notion. I like to think of it as ‘Blazing Space.’

“I always look at a genre comedy and say, ‘How many cliches can I draw on without anyone ever thinking of it?’ So I looked at ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ and I said, ‘Yes, I think we have enough space cliches to last us for at least an entire movie.’ ”

Don’t start Brooks talking about the theory of comedy--he’ll tell you everything he knows.

“Cliches are just the ornaments,” he said, gaining momentum. “The tree has to be solid. The movie has got to be about something. Take ‘Blazing Saddles.’ It was about whether a black could survive in the good old West. It may seem like a silly picture but, to me, it had a strong underpinning because it was really about love.

“But most audiences only remember the ornaments of a comedy--the jokes.” Brooks began to paint a portrait, sliding his hands across an imaginary canvas. “They don’t see the tree. It’s dark. It’s all bark. But what would all the ornaments be without the tree for support? They’d just be a pile of shiny baubles on the ground.”

Brooks insisted that he could taken “Spaceballs” to virtually any studio. “They all made offers,” he said. “Fox really wanted it. Columbia was in there until the last minute. (Michael) Eisner and Disney too. But I’ve known Laddie (MGM Chairman Alan Ladd) for years. And I’m not so wise, so old or so powerful that I can resist a lot of gut-level help all the way down the line--and especially emotional support--which is something Laddie has always provided.”

Brooks’ spirited monologue finally ground to a halt.

“Listen, the kids know all these movies by heart, so we’re going with the force. That’s why we have this new stock company. I wanted some young comics to come in and. . . .”

The film maker revved his voice into high gear, like a high-powered studio exec. “Steve Martin. Get him outta here! He’s too old. He’s got gray hair!”

Brooks wagged his head. “Hey, I’m the most ancient person in the movie. I even make a joke about it in the film. I say, ‘I’m the oldest guy here--and I’m 39!’ ”

Speaking of “the force”--what does George Lucas, who is notoriously protective of his films’ images, think of this epic space parody? After all, one of the characters Brooks plays in “Spaceballs” is Yoga, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Yoda, the all-knowing troll of “Star Wars” fame.

“I sent George a letter,” Brooks explained, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t know the legalities of it. But even though I didn’t hear from him directly, I got the word from people around him that he was going to be a, well, a good sport about it.

“I think George had one major concern--and a legitimate one. Which was, if we’re going to satirize his movies, that we weren’t going to merchandise anything from the film. And that’s fine with us.”

Brooks shrugged, more serious now. “You know, putting together a movie is a strange and wondrous thing. It’s all these bits and pieces that if they’re somehow arranged in just the right fashion take on a life of their own.”

Brooks held out his hand, palm up. “It’s as if you have a leaf . . . and a leaf . . . and then another leaf . . . and another. . . .” His words all begin to run together, like an announcer touting a Sunday stock-car race. “A leaf here . . . and here . . . and here . . . and finally”--he exulted--”a tree!”

Rick Moranis was worried. He’d just finished filming a new scene--an undeniably funny scene. But as he conferred with Brooks afterwards, he wondered--was the humor too broad?

“I don’t know about how that played,” he said. “Do you think we might be gilding the lily?”

Brooks squeezed Moranis’ shoulder. “Don’t worry--we can’t. It’s a very big lily.”

If anyone understands Brooks’ comedy style, it’s Ronny Graham, who co-wrote “Spaceballs” (with Thomas Meehan) and has known Brooks for 35 years. “He’s always concerned that we may laugh at something, the crew may laugh at something, but how will it play in the theater--where no one knows us, where there’s a whole new generation watching,” he said.

“I think Mel has what I’d call a healthy vulgarity. I have friends that love his work, and many who loathe it. But that’s OK. As George Bernard Shaw once put it: ‘Better half of them love you and half of them hate you than everyone think you’re nice.’ ”

Graham and Brooks first met when Graham was acting and writing a Broadway revue called “New Faces of 1952.” As Graham tells it, Brooks had written a funny take-off on “Death of a Salesman” for a show that bombed in Philadelphia. So Graham borrowed it for his revue instead.

“We’ve been working on ‘Spaceballs’ for 2 1/2 years now,” he explained. “Of course, we have our disagreements. After a while, cabin fever sets in and we start to shout at each other. But Mel--like Sid Caesar, Woody Allen and all the other great comics--has this impeccable timing. He knows just how to play a scene.

“Better still, he has the overview, which is why he’s the director and I’m the writer. I get caught up in one great line, but he’s always thinking of the whole picture, which is tricky stuff. You have to look at the forest and the trees. If you don’t know both, it’s no good.”

Graham acknowledged that comedy debates with his longtime collaborator can be a lively affair. “Mel’s very vehement. If he doesn’t like a line you write, he’ll shout and stomp and holler,” Graham said with a mischievous grin. “He’ll bellow, ‘You’re totally wrong. You don’t know anything about comedy!’

“But here’s what really happens. He’ll fight ferociously against something Ezra or I suggest, but all the while he’ll be rolling that idea around in his head. And if the idea has any merit at all, he won’t necessarily admit it. But he’ll find a way to use it in the scene.”

Once Brooks falls in love with a gag, it takes an awful lot of X’s on his script to convince him it shouldn’t stay in the picture. Sometimes you wonder whether it’s the laugh it gets--or how much Brooks savors the furious act of comic creation itself.

One day, sipping peppermint tea and honey between takes, Brooks reminisced with his production designer about a long-forgotten actor he once saw in Yiddish theater. “The guy only had one line in the play. He played a butler and he came out and he was supposed to say, ‘Dinner is served.’

“But he took this one line and really milked it--he stretched it out to the breaking point. He came out with a flourish and said, ‘Dinner . . . and ohhhh, vat a dinner it is . . . is served!’ ”

Brooks beamed. “One line. And look what he did with it!”

Brooks eased into a booth near the back of his favorite Brentwood delicatessen. Before he sat down, he worked the room like a politician in the heat of a campaign, stopping to chat with the chef, shake hands with the countermen and shout greetings to any waitress within hailing distance.

Brooks picked up a menu, running through a series of luncheon recommendations for his guest. “The matzo-ball soup is terrific,” he enthused. “And the sandwiches are huge. We could easily split a turkey sandwich, if you’re hungry.”

His waitress suggested a combination sandwich--half corned beef, half pastrami. “Wait a minute--corned beef and pastrami?” Brooks groaned in mock disbelief. “That’s a bit much, even for an old Jew.”

Brooks stared at his waitress. “My God, you’re pregnant! When are you due?

May, she told him. “A great month,” he said, rattling off all the birth dates of his immediate family. And how’s his film coming along, the waitress wondered. “Oy,” he said. “It’s a killer. We’re still in the middle of it. But what a lot of work. Look at me!”

Brooks rubbed his big, fleshy hands over his eyes. He did look tired. On the set, he’s an formidable presence, like a tough old sergeant who keeps pushing his weary troops through a impenetrable swamp. At the deli, after an all-morning editing session, Brooks suddenly looked his age. His hair was thin and mostly gray, his skin sallow, his face sculpted with thick lines and creases.

His armor--the familiar quips and jokes--had worn thin. Today, Brooks seemed more introspective, less eager to perform. As he let down his guard, he offered some insight into his indefatigable drive, which has kept him on the Hollywood front line long after most of his contemporaries have retired to comfortable homes in the hills.

“I know it’s been a long time between directing movies for me,” he said. “But I only direct things I write. I’d rather write the Ninth Symphony than conduct it. And these days, it takes three years to do the script and set up the deal and--well--I just won’t direct a picture I haven’t written.”

He clanged his spoon against his bowl of soup. “Frankly, I hate directing. I only direct in self-defense. It’s like building a building and having someone else paint it and furnish it. They’re going to get it wrong!”

Brooks shrugged. “There’s nothing worse than being on the set. All the excitement and the merriment and celebration. You know, all the sociability--what are we going to eat today? Where are you going for the weekend?

“But all I can think about is what happens afterwards. I know that all those people are going to leave me and go on to another picture, while I’m stuck in the editing room for months, slaving over the film.”

Brooks once explained that his humor was simply a “scream and a protest” against death. “Most people are afraid of death, but I really hate it!” he told an interviewer more than a decade ago. “So I try to give my work everything I’ve got, because when you’re dead or you’re in an old actors’ home somewhere, if you’ve done a good job, your work will still be 16 years old and dancing and healthy and pirouetting and arabesquing all over the place. And they’ll say, ‘That’s who he is. He’s not this decaying skeleton.’ ”

It makes you wonder--is there a serious film lurking somewhere in Brooks’ comic genes?

Brooks fell silent. “Who knows?” he finally said. “In a strange way, I don’t think I could make a serious movie. I’m too private to do it. What I really feel is nobody’s business. I need a comedy proscenium to disguise it in.

“I like film makers who are storytellers, not psychologists. I just don’t like to interpret my work that much. For example, sometimes I think my pictures are ripe with blatant sexuality, only so I can hide things I really feel--affection, love and desire. Maybe by being really blatant about the sex . . . I can disguise the more subtle feelings.”

Brooks’ speed-of-light delivery slowed considerably as he uneasily wrestled with these private thoughts. Yet when asked why comedies get laughed off by most critics, Brooks’ motor kicked into gear again.

“I think American critics perceive comedy as just being frivolous,” he said, leaning across the table, regaining his old fervor. “They equate being serious with being important. They’ll give an award to Woody (Allen), who makes bittersweet, serious comedies, but will they give it to Laurel and Hardy or Chaplin?”

Brooks compared his reception here to in France, where he has often been lauded with honors. “Over there, comedy is an ironic term. It’s not just a matter of being funny. The word itself translates more as ‘Can we laugh through our tears?’

“The French know it’s hard. They don’t laugh at ‘Police Academy.’ That’s not comedy. They want comedy to be about something, to have a philosophical base.”

Of course, the French adore Jerry Lewis too, philosophical base or not. “Sure, they’ve given him his due,” he acknowledged. Then he grinned: “What do you expect from them--a perfect race?”

Brooks said the French critics especially admired “Young Frankenstein” and “History of the World, Part I.” In fact, he can quote his notices verbatim.

“My favorite review, of ‘History of the World,’ ended by saying, ‘(Brooks) doesn’t believe history as it was given to him--and we agree.’ ”

For Brooks, comedy provides a film maker with a wonderfully varied palette, which can offer humor, pathos, verve or sly satire. “I really think you can say a lot more important and profound things in comedy than in any other medium,” he said with sudden force. “When you’re a serious film maker, if you preach you can be a bore. But if you’re a comedian, you can say virtually everything. It allows you to be angry and passionate. That’s satire. It’s . . . our job!”

Maybe that’s why Brooks views comedy as the artist’s most potent weapon against the fear of death and dissolution. “Listen, it’s easy for people my age to sit in front of the TV at night and relax. But if you get angry about things, you can keep your edge.

“I still rail at all the injustices that rear their head in this world. I get angry about our President’s policies, about Jell-O TV, about the crap that passes for culture and society’s wholesale neglect of whole segments of our population.”

Brooks was really steamed now, whacking his hand on the table. “You have to be able to point your finger at the obvious insanities of our age and say, ‘It’s not right!’ ”

Brooks sounded triumphant. “Show me a good film maker and I’ll show you someone who keeps shouting, ‘No! No! No!’ ”