by M. Roca
The stories of both Frankenstein and Dracula, becoming huge hits during the early talkie era, have long been certified as Hollywood box office legend for taking a secondary genre and minting it as a dependable moneymaker. Soon, the rush was on at all the studio systems to try and replicate the fortunes Universal had unwittingly ushered in during 1931. Many rivals tried their hand at horror with varying degrees of success, but only Carl Laemmle’s company, who followed up these two titans of fright with many other worthy productions, kept at it with vigor and consistency throughout the decade. Things started slowing down after The Wolfman struttedhis yak fur in 1941, but the studio still kept cranking out a slew of B programmers well into the 50s when science fiction gradually took over. While the popularity of these pictures has never wavered with movie buffs (Universal just recently repackaged their Monster collection on Blu-Ray for the first time and umpteenth on DVD/VHS), those first two features are the ones both modern viewers and those from the 70s remember best.
Dracula, for all intents and purposes, has dated rather badly. It’s still recognized as a pivotal film that kicked off the horror craze (while also simultaneously launching the career of Bela Lugosi), but cinematically it’s basically a museum piece. It also never developed a succession of true sequels over a period of time that added to the legend. Dracula’s Daughter, for one, was only loosely tied to the original, while Son Of Dracula came much later and was also only arbitrarily connected to Tod Browning’s initial effort. Frankenstein, on the other hand, has basically collected the award for most substantial Universal property and series. Its enduring popularity is not only tied to the Boris Karloff/James Whale debut, but the two subsequent additions to the franchise that came after (Bride and Son). It’s no wonder that when Mel Brooks came up with the idea to spoof a Universal horror film, that Frankenstein would be his logical choice. With so many sequels having been made by the original studio, he could not claim a shortage of material to parody when the time came. A wealth of parts were spread over the cinematic table for Brooks to corral and attach to his own project… a little bit of Ghost Of Frankenstein, a small piece of House Of Frankenstein, and the total embodiment of the first three superior films into a wicked assembly of humor and farce.
Unlike Zucker, Zucker, and Abraham’s Airplane, one gets the impression that Mel Brooks had real admiration and affection for the movie he had chosen to lampoon in 1974. Shot in lovely black and white with actual equipment passed down from the sets of Frankenstein, the movie looks and employs many techniques from the 30s including wipes, antiquated transitions, and iris shots. It has a kind of calmness and stillness associated with that older era of moviemaking where everything moved slower and in a more measured pace.
Employing such comedic stalwarts as Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, and Madeline Kahn, Young Frankenstein sizzles with delightful merriment. The theatrical settings and mise en scene are executed and rendered straight, while the campiness and farce are mostly subtle (though the Puttin’ On The Ritz scene certainly tips over into refined slapstick) without ever feeling overwhelmingly silly. Sure, there is obvious broadness to many of the gags—and it wouldn’t be a Brooks film without some overt zaniness—but the material certainly has a degree of restraint when compared to other examples in the director’s oeuvre.
Wilder basically plays another in a long line of tortured male descendants of the Frankenstein family. Bemused and peeved when anyone brings up his cursed lineage, he attempts to stay relatively anonymous by lecturing at a medical school in America and changing the pronunciation of his name to “Fronkensteen.” But as luck would have it, he comes into possession of his family’s estate and decides to travel back to the land of his ancestors. Greeted by the obligatory hunchback who is also following his accursed forebears into servitude at the local train station, Fronkensteen can’t help but follow a well-worn pattern we’ve seen before in about seven movies (although never this funny). Naturally a brain will be stolen, cadavers rifled out of graves, and life will be created from lightning bolts out of the sky to rile up the irritated and long suffering villagers. In the end, (almost) everyone gets the girl, but not quite in the order James Whale and his team of writers would have imagined when they sat down and put pen to paper themselves. This conclusion has a twist that may not send your blood into icy creeps, but certainly will tickle a funny bone or two.
Plenty of nostalgia is wrapped up in Young Frankenstein for me. As a pre-teen, I discovered and began to admire old horror movies of the 30s and 40s. Young Frankenstein, while made many decades later, struck a chord with my newfound love for this type of cinema. I always loved the scene where Wilder and Teri Garr are combing over the various skulls filled with cobwebs and they come into contact with Igor’s far from rotting face. As they react from the startle, he launches into a prolonged song and dance number complete with a rat-a-tat ending. It’s one of the many moments that never fails to get me.
Young Frankenstein was a huge hit with plenty of critical acclaim in 1974. Any doubts Columbia Pictures had over filming in black and white and everything going over budget were quickly put to rest when the movie was released in theaters in mid-December (though 20th Century Fox reaped the actual rewards). Brooks was on a roll, having had made Blazing Saddles that same year. This was a period where he was at the peak of his craft, producing a slew of wonderful comedies in quick succession. Young Frankenstein would eventually turn into a Broadway musical and is still revered to this day by legions of fans. More than just a cheap spoof, it lovingly mocks a group of pictures that many still find joy in watching today. Mel Brooks has even stated that Young Frankenstein is his favorite among films he’s directed. I can’t help but agree with that opinion as well.
How Young Frankenstein made the top 100:
#10 David Schleicher
#10 Jon Warner
#19 Brandie Ashe
#20 John Greco
#22 Pat Perry
#22 Marilyn Ferdinand
#22 Jason Marshall
#25 Maurizio Roca
#26 Dean Treadway
#33 Pierre De Plume
#34 Bobby Jopsson
#39 Samuel Wilson
#45 J.D. La France
#53 Dennis Polifroni
#53 Jaime Grijalba
#57 Bob Clark
#60 Frank Gallo
