A Broadway Musical the black-themed musical itself. "The Wiz" proved to be Brown's only success. Following a dismal October–November tryout with Helen Gallagher and Julius LaRosa at the theatre in the Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, the producers fired most of the cast and creative personnel, including director/choreographer George Faison. Gower Champion was called in to rescue the Broadway-bound production with only a month to go, but he feared that the show's defects were too serious to remedy and insisted on receiving a "Production supervised by" credit only. After 14 previews, the Broadway production opened and closed the same night at the Lunt-Fontanne
Mel Brooks DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar, Bernadette Peters, and in cameo roles playing themselves: Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, and with brilliant irony, Marcel Marceau, the man who never speaks, who uttered the film's only word of audible dialogue: "Non!" Although not as successful as his previous two films, "Silent Movie" was a hit and grossed $36 million. Later that year, Brooks was named number 5 on a list of the Top Ten Box Office Stars. In 1977, Brooks made a parody of the films of Alfred Hitchcock in "High Anxiety". The film was written by