Welcome back to my monster- fest!
Today, because I love all you loyal readers so much, in continuing with the theme of horror- comedies, I’ll be fulfilling a request made by one of you early on this month by reviewing the Mel Brooks classic “Young Frankenstein.†Made in 1974 by Brooks, and starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, and Cloris Leachman, this is considered to be easily one of Brooks’ best films. It has remained immensely popular even though it has been almost 40 years since its premiere, is in my opinion one of the most quotable comedy films ever made, and now has a musical based off it that was on Broadway for 2 years (A number from it called ‘Transylvania Mania’ was performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade a few years ago). So, now, for the first time in at least 5 years, I’ll be taking a look at it.
Gene Wilder plays Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Though, of course, he insists it is pronounced “Frahnk- en- Steenâ€), grandson of Victor Frankenstein, who first tinkered with creating new life. Frederick is a respected neurosurgeon who is deeply embarrassed of his grandfather’s legacy and of the fact that his students and others keep associating him with his grandfather, whom Frederick regards as a lunatic. Then, he receives notice that he has inherited from his great- grandfather a castle deep in Transylvania, where Victor Frankenstein apparently did much of his work.
Upon traveling there, he is introduced to his three new associates: The incompetent hunchback Igor (Marty Feldman), the curvaceous Inga (Teri Garr), and the mysterious Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman, who terrifies the horses simply through hearing her name). He eventually discovers a secret passage in the castle leading to his grandfather’s secret laboratory, finds that his grandfather wrote a book entitled simply “How I Did It,†and in it, discovers that the way Victor describes to reanimate dead life may actually work.
So, Frederick follows in his grandfather’s footsteps, assembling a 7- foot- tall monster from the parts of dead people. He has Igor try to steal the brain of an apparently brilliant deceased scientist, but as in the original film, Igor accidentally drops and destroys that brain, and grabs an abnormal brain instead. This, of course, causes the Monster to become almost completely uncontrollable, other than a weakness for hearing a Transylvanian lullaby performed on the violin. Frederick tries in vain to civilize it and get the public to accept it, then finally decides to undergo a potentially dangerous experiment that he knows is likely the only way to save the Monster.
As far as potential problems with ‘Young Frankenstein,’ about the only one I could think of is that the music occasionally gets a bit repetitive, it’s mainly just the same Transylvanian lullaby over and over again. It sounds quite pretty, especially on violin, but they didn’t have to keep constantly playing it, especially considering how often they use it as just random background music.
‘Young Frankenstein’’s strengths are, of course, many. It’s not only one of Mel Brooks’ best movies, it’s arguably one of the best spoof/ parody movies ever made. This is true both because of how funny it is, and because of how heavily it draws from and pokes fun at so much of the source material. ‘Young Frankenstein’ in fact references and parodies three different Frankenstein movies: The 1931 original, ‘Bride of Frankenstein,’ and 1939’s ‘Son of Frankenstein’ (The wooden- armed police inspector in it played by Kenneth Mars is a parody of a similar character in ‘Son of Frankenstein’). Some of the humor is physical comedy (i.e. in a parody of the scene with the old blind man from ‘Bride of Frankenstein,’ the blind man, here played by Gene Hackman, gets a lot of laughs from how he keeps accidentally hurting the Monster such as by unwittingly pouring hot soup in its lap and setting its finger on fire), but the majority of it stems from the funny dialogue between the characters, such as puns and innuendos. As I mentioned in the beginning, the list of memorable quotes in this movie could fill a phone book.
Gene Wilder is much the same as he is in most of his roles, rapidly alternating between being very calm and collected, and abruptly being manic and deranged, often switching between the two extremes in a matter of seconds. It’s over- the- top, and hilarious. Marty Feldman as Igor is equally funny, and steals every scene he’s in. Madeline Kahn is also very funny in her small but memorable performance as Frederick’s ditzy fiancée, Elizabeth. Peter Boyle is amazing as the Monster. Between his body language, his perfect facial expressions, and a wonderful monologue he gives in the film’s climax, he makes the Monster a great balance between funny and moving.
So, that’s ‘Young Frankenstein.’ If any of you honestly haven’t seen it yet (Which would truly surprise me), it is your duty to go out and do so ASAP.
To conclude this review, I have a question for those of you who have enjoyed reading my reviews: I am giving some thought to possibly doing something similar to this in December, a ’25 Days of Christmas’ marathon in which each day, I’ll review a different Christmas- related movie orTV special. Would you guys like to see me do that? Let me know.
I should hopefully have another review up tonight, and it’ll be a good one! See you then!
