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The 1976 movie scene Mel Brooks didn’t even try to deny he’d plagiarised: “I call it thievery”
Mel Brooks admitted that a bathroom gag in his 1976 comedy *Silent Movie* was copied from a scene in Buster Keaton’s 1928 film *The Cameraman*. He described the borrowing as “thievery”, while also making clear it was a tribute to a filmmaker he admired.
In Brooks’s scene, characters played by Harold Gould and Ron Carey struggle as one becomes stuck in the other’s coat; Keaton’s similar mishap takes place in a changing room. Brooks said he thanked Keaton after the scene was filmed, and Keaton’s widow, Eleanor, was also involved in a gag that was cut from the finished film.
In short
- Brooks borrowed a gag from Keaton’s *The Cameraman*.
- The scene appeared in *Silent Movie* in 1976.
- He called the borrowing “thievery” and a tribute.
Explained simply
Mel Brooks is an American comedy filmmaker and performer known for films such as Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. Silent Movie, released in 1976, is a comedy made largely without spoken dialogue, drawing on the physical gags of early cinema.
Buster Keaton was a major silent-film comedian and director whose work relied on carefully staged physical comedy. The Cameraman, released in 1928, is one of his films; its changing-room scene provides background to the similar coat mishap in Brooks’s film.
The story concerns how comedy makers borrow from earlier films, and how such borrowing can also be intended as homage. Keaton’s influence on later screen comedy makes the connection between the two scenes relevant to film history.
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