[Dawgreg]

Sorry, I've never heard of Sergei Eisenstein......now Mel Brooks yes! The sillier and more outrageous a film is, the better I like it. I know I may have a defect.......*~*.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

No, I'm a big Mel Brooks fan myself.

Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles usually make these AFI "Best Comedies of the 20th Century" lists.

I'm surprised that they didn't even pick one movie from his vast, very amusing, body of work.

Oh well.

[SoCal Pubbie]

They've been running Eisenstein movies lately I think on American Movie Classics. Anyway, very influential Russian director. The scene in The Untouchables where the baby carriage goes down the stairs in the train station in Chicago is a rip off of the Odessa steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin.

I once read that one of the big things about Ole' Sergei is that unlike the usual sequence of establishing shot, mid shot, reaction, etc. his scenes were a series of varied shots designed to create a rhythm and tension by their framing and juxtaposition. He had the backing of the Soviet government so budgets weren't a big deal and there were often thousands of extras in his films.

http://waynesweb.ualr.edu/Expressionism/Eisenstein.htm