Mel Brooks's scattergun approach to comedy has a number of misses. Spaceballs was OK at parodying its genre. This film is far more sophisticated and well played.
The successful jokes are on the culture of Victorain times with references to an engaged couple who after 10 years have suddenly held hands being condemned as immoral, prostitutes, lechers and the like.
Into these cultural and successful observations Brook's introduces Leslie Nielson doing a great impression of Bela Lugosi's Dracula with the difference that his powers are incompetent.
Seeing the Lugosi movie will give you the basis to appreciate the sophistication of this film.
The successful jokes are on the culture of Victorain times with references to an engaged couple who after 10 years have suddenly held hands being condemned as immoral, prostitutes, lechers and the like.
Into these cultural and successful observations Brook's introduces Leslie Nielson doing a great impression of Bela Lugosi's Dracula with the difference that his powers are incompetent.
Seeing the Lugosi movie will give you the basis to appreciate the sophistication of this film.