Dr Richard Thorndyke is a psychiatrist who, despite himself having a fear of heights, is on his way to become the new chief administrator for the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very Very Nervous. Despite what his driver thinks, Thorndyke's predecessor died of a sudden heart attack leaving the position to be filled. On arrival, Thorndyke immediately notices that in some ways his staff are not totally different from his patients but it is not long before he cannot help but noticed a myriad of suspicious and unusual occurrences around him and his new workplace.
In theory this should be a hilarious spoof of Hitchcock but disappointingly, it is only an amusing one with very few belly laughs in it. The plot is a reasonably good attempt at aping Hitchcock but does hang together in a narrative that you will care about. Instead what Mel Brooks does is continually look to where the next spoof scene is coming from, whether it totally fits in with the flow or story or not. Of course this should really matter if the audience is laughing hard throughout but, like I said, I wasn't. Problem mainly is that it just isn't a very clever spoof at all, with the material signposted and obvious. This is still not to say that it is worthless, because it is funny but to be honest you will probably find it funniest if you have quite a childish sense of humour.
As director, Brooks does OK in setting his scenes up but I was disappointed by his performance he isn't good enough as a comic actor in this case and too many scenes end with him just standing there. I assume he was letting the laughs come at his blank reaction to things but you need a really good presence to make that work, and he doesn't manage it. Conversely I loved Korman simply because he is funny just by standing there. Leachman has a simple character but she also does it well. Kahn is not that good because the material handed her is weak.
Overall, an amusing spoof but certainly not a good one. The jokes and such are quite obvious so, although it will raise a chuckle, don't expect it to be anything inventive or inspired.
