Cinema Sunday: Young Frankenstein

Today's Cinema Sunday takes a look at the 1974 comedy from director Mel Brooks, Young Frankenstein.   

Stylistically, Young Frankenstein is a tour de force with Brooks going to extensive lengths to emulate the look and feel of the he 1931 film Frankenstein. Brooks shot the film in black and white, employed a 1930's style for the opening credits and employed transition devices of the era such as iris out and fade to black. 

For the equipment in Frankenstein's lab, Brooks used props created by Kenneth Strickfaden for the 1931 film. 

Gene Wilder who co-wrote the screenplay with Mel Brooks chews up a ton of scenery as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein ("that's pronounced FRONK UN STEEN!"), the descendant of Victor Frankenstein who wants nothing to do with his morbid legacy until he discovers his grandfather's plans just might work. 

Even when Dr. Frederick Frankenstein is working very hard to stay calm and measured and not like a mad scientist, Gene Wilder's manic intensity is barely repressed. When the lid is off that repression ("GIVE MY CREATION LIFE!!!!"), there is no part of the set that Gene Wilder does devour like its an Easter dinner ham.  

Despite Brooks' attempts at adhering to the somber stylings of the original 1931 Frankenstein movie, Young Frankenstein serves up a lot of Brooks' classic sense of absurdity. 

In order to present his lifeless creation (Peter Boyle) brought to life to the greater scientific community, Frankenstein opts to do so with a song and dance number, presenting his creature as a man about town in a performance of "Putting On the Ritz".  

What brought Young Frankenstein to mind for this week's Cinema Sunday was the sad news of the passing of Cloris Leachman who was impeccably sinister and weird as Frau Blücher, a woman so strange and foreboding that the mere mention of her name prompts fear in horses.

Repeatedly. 

The whole cast turns in strong performances with Marty Feldman playing the hunchbacked helper Igor as a Borscht belt comic.  Terri Garr is witty and luminescent as Helga and Madeline Kahn's turn as Frankenstein's extremely high maintenance fiancé is incisive and acerbically funny. 

Mel Brooks is known for movies that parody various genres including westerns (Blazing Saddles) and science fiction (Spaceballs). But none have such a strong sense of style and such a powerful inherent love of the source material than Young Frankenstein. 

Yes, it is a litany of nonsense for a lot of good laughs but it is also a love letter to classic horror films from Universal Studios back in the 1930's.