34—Friday, December 25, 1970 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS DINING — DANCING— ENTERTAINMENT— AT THE 24K CLUB 71wo perfect blend for a perfect evening. Thu music is soft and scintillating, the claiming Is delightful, the food — well, we are mighty proud of It—come in, see why. Hollywood Kudos for Mel Brooks and Fritz Lang By HERBERT G. LUFT (Copyright 1970, Mt. Inc.) Mel Brooks, the "2,000-Year-Old Man" of yesteryear's comedy al- bums, is writer-director of the Yugoslavian-made American movie "The Twelve Chairs," set in Here s what they are saying about Windsor's great restaurant ree- "GOURMET EATING usaahle price. . . . Wes the Roma TWA. ea Ouellette fa Wirirdeve . . le' —. • bee plate, bet seam a he ale- pat evieiee Is ...wawa anyeelere" . . . Ihea•y Raskin — Detroit Jewish N.-.. Pieetering Detroit's Inimitable Harry Harris with the Schick Trio f Nights a Week. Closed Sunday. Serving from 11 AM to 2 AM 1111111110 To I am rap is (south of McNichols) k. UN& 0 ITAE31.013 1545 OUELLETTE MAIN STREET WINDSOR RESERVATIONS: 519-254-4004 Welcome '71 in Style' Spend New Year's Eve at The Pontchartrain Take Your Choice of These Great Celebration Sites: IA leTatirme, MEDITERRANEE Billy Maxted's Great Band Detroit's most exciting Cabaret Superb Drinks, Food, Service ealamatutrt Oar Ernie Swan at the piano Dinner . . . or snacks Fine Drinks The famed Mediterranee bill of fare, plus a very special FiletMignon Dinner Dance Music Impeccable Service Reservations, please. 865- 0200. Your Host Chuck Muer. Valet parking, at the motor lobby entrance, for your convenience. Detroit's favorite meeting place Russia in 1927 and played against the canvas of post-revolutionary chaos. Michael Hertzberg produced the madcap screen comedy from the classic tale by Ill & Petrov for UMC Pictures, a division of Wolfson's Universal Marion Cot poration, as one of 12 new films made under the guidance of Sid- ney Glazier. The latter produced Brooks' first feature, "The Producers," a brilliantly conceived spoof executed in dubious taste, for which Mel received an Academy award for original story and screenplay and Gene Wilder (portraying the sidekick of Zero Mostel) a "Best Supporting Ac- tor" Oscar nomination. Before "The Producers," Brooks netted the coveted Ac a demy Award Statuette for the cartoon 'The Critic," which he conceived, wrote and narrated—but didn't direct. "The Critic," "The Producers" and "The Twelve Chairs" are pure comedy, retaining Mel Brooks' offbeat outlook on life heretofore felt in his contributions to the legit theater, to television, records and radio, and in odd TV advertising commercials. Born in, Brooklyn, Mel made his first appearance as an actor in a ' modest production of "Golden Boy" in Red Bank, N.J. After a turn as a director of amateur shows in the Cat- qkills "Borscht Belt," he be- came associated with Sid Caesar in the late 1940s, contributing dialogue and sketches to "Broad- way Revue" and "Your Show of Shows." When the latter show left the air after, almost 10 years, Brooks teamed with Carl Reiner, another "Show of Shows" graduate, on the now-legendary "2000-Year-Old Man." Teaming with Buck Henry, Brooks developed the television series "Get Smart," which made Don Adams a star. Mel went on to Broadway, contributing to "Neiv Faces" and writing such musicals as "Shinbone Alley" and "All- American," the latter of which re- turned Ray Bolger to the theater. "The Twelve Chairs" is Brook.;' first try at adaptation of a novel for the screen. It also is his first appearance in a feature film es- saying Tikon, a Russian muzhik who, when kicked in the face, is concerned only that his blood should not soil his master's boots. • • • Fritz Lang, the Austrian-born film director, a giant of the screen on two continents, celebrated his 80th birthday in Beverly Hills, Calif., Dec. 5 as both the Cin- ematheque in Paris and Berlin's Kinemathek held retrospectives of his work spanning a half century. Lang started long before our time as a screen writer in Berlin during the aftermath of World War I, collaborating with the late Joe May. In 1919, Lang became a film director for Erich Pommer's Decla-Bioskop and later for Ufa. With "Metropolis," he foresaw the industrial conflict within Germany in a futuristic canvas of gigantic proportions; in "Spies," he set the pattern for the first master-spy yarn of international flavor; with "The Woman in the Moon," he pointed at the space explorations and prophetically foretold the first lunar landing. When sound was added to the silent image, Lang startled the cinema with two of the greatest dramatic works of the earlier talkies: "M," the tragic acount of a child-killer that catapulted Peter Lorre to stardom and set new standards of precision for a scien- tifically developed crime detection; and "The Testament of Dr. Ma- buse," foreshadowing the regime of terror then being prepared by the Nazis. Both of these films were made for the late Seymour Nebenzal, head of Nero Films. When Hitler rose to power, "DI" Was confiscated by the state and shown only as a blueprint of "Jewish-Marxistie" perversion. The German-language print and the negative of "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" were destroyed, yet Lang smuggled out the French version when he fled to Paris in April of 1933. Among the pictures he directed in exile, the filmization of Ferenc Molnar's "Liliom" is noteworthy for a new leading man, Charles Boyer. In Hollywood since 1935 and long an American citizen, Lang introduced himself to the American public with "Fury," an indictment of lynch hysteria, with Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney sharing star billing. "You Only Live Once," with Henry Fonda and Miss Sidney, followed. During World War II, Lang ex- celled with two powerful anti-Nazi epics: "Man Hunt," story of a man dedicated to kill Hitler, with Walter Pidgeon in the leading role; and "Hangmen Also Die," the account of the Heydrich assassination in Czechoslovakia, written by Berton Brecht. JERRY BIELFIELD, president of the Detroit Auto Dealers Asso- ciation and a Ford dealer for 21 years, has been named by the DADA as its Qualified Dealer Award Winner for 1971. Bielfleld is a director of the Jewish Welfare Federation. NOW APPEARING FRI. & SAT. EVES. KENNY DUO STONE DJ'S INN 17321 W. McNichols Maks Year New Vases ROMIPOOSOIN Nowt 273 - 0727 3 mks. a , of amakflaid BANQUETS! MEETINGS! PAR T3ES! • NORTHWOOD INN JG Heavy RAMO% aid Came Itasemberg Presets A Cameral Eatertalreat Corp. Prilledlem "BALD A Musical Satirical Comedy Roams Music and Lyrics by Mast Move & Wady libsona ' DInnalid by: David Ita•al — Mask Diradad bye Res !N er. arm SNI — Winn Lynn Howard. I.Nvy Perim Passsia Mona and Lk Oliwwwwdast by Dennis Kant. Peribananse Simon Wad. and Theis, alb PrL and WC, 639 & Taylor — THE Two Washington Boulevard THEATRE ZODIAC 12 Mils at Notrawastont Rennvati ans and 3584226 Time I nblesnation 2 MO SNOWS NNW YRAJelt ••WM CLOSED XMAS NNW, DEC IS