It’s Brooks’s audacity -- his treating cruelty and pain as a crazy joke, and doing it in a low-comedy context -- that gives History the kick that was missing from his last few films.

"History of the World, Part 1" is one of the all-time great spoof comedies. Its genius can be seen right there in its title.

What [Brooks] takes to be the glorious folk humor that modern people have repressed looks to many of us like the tired jokes that were yawned off the burlesque stage 50 years ago.

1981 ‘…there’s enough smart and occasionally profound moments to make this worth a revival…’