- Mel Brooks' High Anxiety is an affectionate, if not particularly effective, tribute to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. As with all of Brooks' work, imitation is the order of the day, and there is no more concentrated amalgam of Hitchcock leading men than Richard H. Thorndyke, a wrongfully accused psychiatrist who suffers from "high anxiety." Before you imagine a star with Cary Grant's good looks and Jimmy Stewart's charm, however, you should be aware that Thorndyke is portrayed by Brooks himself. If nothing else, the film helps one to appreciate Hitchcock's preference for brief cameos.
- Thorndyke's initial arrival in San Francisco is quite amusing ("What a dramatic airport!"), but unfortunately the laughs in High Anxiety are few and far between. This is surprising, given how effective Brooks' shtick was in paying homage to monster movies and westerns. Of course, that is not to say that the film is a complete loss. The absurd impromptu boxing match between Thorndyke and his mentor, the aptly named Lilloman (Howard Morris), is unexpectedly funny, as is Brooks' crassly realistic interpretation of a bird attack. A more representative scene, however, is the film's recasting of Psycho's shower attack as a newspaper delivery gone wrong. In that particular case, even five minutes of impressive cinematography aren't enough to salvage the painfully unfunny punchline. More confusing still are the gags that have nothing at all to do with the Master of Suspense. Cloris Leachman's oddly irrelevant take on Nurse Ratched, for example, pales in comparison to her hilarious riff on an actual Hitchcock villainess in Young Frankenstein. Harvey Korman and Madeline Kahn are as funny as the film allows them to be, but ultimately High Anxiety's promising premise proves to be more MacGuffin than masterpiece.
- This film was dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock.
