Young Frankenstein | |
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Directed by | Mel Brooks |
Written by |
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Based on | Frankenstein 1818 novel by Mary Shelley |
Produced by | Michael Gruskoff |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Gerald Hirschfeld |
Edited by | John C. Howard |
Music by | John Morris |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | 20th Century-Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 105 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2.78 million [2] |
Box office | $86.2 million [3] |
Young Frankenstein is a 1974 American comedy horror film directed by Mel Brooks. The screenplay was co-written by Brooks and Gene Wilder. Wilder also starred in the lead role as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Peter Boyle portrayed the monster. [4] The film co-stars Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn, and Gene Hackman.
The film is a parody of the classic horror film genre, in particular the various film adaptations of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus produced by Universal Pictures in the 1930s. [5] Much of the lab equipment used as props was created by Kenneth Strickfaden for the 1931 film Frankenstein. [6] To help evoke the atmosphere of the earlier films, Brooks shot the picture entirely in black and white, a rarity in the 1970s, and employed 1930s-style opening credits and scene transitions such as iris outs, wipes, and fades to black. The film also features a period score by Brooks' longtime composer John Morris.
A critical and commercial success, Young Frankenstein ranks No. 28 on Total Film magazine's readers' "List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time", [7] No. 56 on Bravo's list of the "100 Funniest Movies", [8] and No. 13 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 funniest American movies. [9] In 2003, it was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the United States National Film Preservation Board, and selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry. [10] [11] It was later adapted by Brooks and Thomas Meehan as a stage musical. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay (for Wilder and Brooks) and Best Sound.
In 2014, the year of its 40th anniversary, Brooks considered it by far his finest (although not his funniest) film as a writer-director. [12]
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.(October 2024) |
Early in the 20th century, Dr. Frederick Frankenstein is a lecturing physician at an American medical school. He is engaged to Elizabeth, a socialite. Frederick actively distances himself from his grandfather Victor Frankenstein, the infamous mad scientist. He even pronounces his surname as "Fronkensteen". [13] When Frederick inherits the family estate in Transylvania, he travels to Europe to inspect the property. At the Transylvania train station, Frederick is met by a hunchbacked, bug-eyed servant named Igor, whose own grandfather worked for Victor. A young woman named Inga also greets him.
Arriving at the estate, Frederick meets Frau Blücher, the dour intimidating housekeeper. After discovering the secret entrance to Victor's laboratory and reading his private journals, Frederick resumes his grandfather's experiments in re-animating the dead.
Frederick and Igor steal a recently-executed criminal's corpse. He sends Igor to steal the brain of a deceased "scientist and saint" named Hans Delbrück. Igor accidentally destroys Delbrück's brain and takes another one labeled "Abnormal". Frederick unknowingly transplants it into the corpse and brings the Monster to life. It takes its first steps, but, frightened by Igor lighting a match, attacks Frederick and nearly strangles him before being sedated.
Unaware the Monster exists, the townspeople gather to discuss their unease at Frederick continuing his grandfather's work. Inspector Kemp, a one-eyed police inspector with a prosthetic arm and an unusually thick, barely-understandable German accent, proposes visiting the doctor, whereupon he demands assurance that Frederick will not create another Monster.
Returning to the lab, Frederick discovers Blücher releasing the creature. She reveals the Monster loves violin music and her own romantic relationship with Frederick's grandfather. The Monster becomes enraged by electrical sparks from a thrown switch and escapes the castle.
While roaming the countryside, the monster has encounters with a young girl and a blind hermit. [a] Frederick recaptures the Monster and locks himself in a room with him. He calms the Monster's homicidal tendencies with flattery and a promise to guide him to success, embracing his heritage as a Frankenstein.
At a theater filled with prominent guests, Frederick shows "The Creature" following simple commands, then he and the Monster perform a musical number. A stage light explodes and frightens the Monster, interrupting the performance. The audience boo and throw vegetables at the Monster, who becomes enraged and charges at them. He is captured and chained by police. Back in the laboratory, Inga attempts to comfort Frederick; they have sex on the suspended reanimation table.
The Monster escapes from prison the same night Elizabeth arrives unexpectedly. The monster takes her captive as he flees. Elizabeth falls in love with the Monster due to his "enormous Schwanzstucker". [15] While the townspeople hunt the Monster, Frederick plays the violin to lure his creation back to the castle and recaptures him.
Just as the Kemp-led mob storms the laboratory, Frederick transfers some of his stabilizing intellect to the Monster who reasons with and placates the mob. Kemp then welcomes the Monster.
Sometime later, Frederick and Inga are wed, and Elizabeth marries the now-erudite and sophisticated Monster. While in bed with Frederick, Inga asks what he got in return during the transfer procedure. Frederick growls wordlessly like the monster and embraces Inga.
The rest of the cast is listed on screen in opening credits under "with":
In a 2010 interview with Los Angeles Times , Mel Brooks discussed how the film came about:
"I was in the middle of shooting the last few weeks of Blazing Saddles somewhere in the Antelope Valley, and Gene Wilder and I were having a cup of coffee and he said, I have this idea that there could be another Frankenstein. I said, "Not another! We've had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law. We don't need another Frankenstein." His idea was very simple: What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos. I said, "That's funny." [18]
In one of the scenes of a village assembly, one of the authority figures says that he already knows what Frankenstein is up to based on five previous experiences. This is a reference to the first five Universal films. [19] In a Gene Wilder DVD interview, he says the film is based on Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942).
In a 2016 interview with Creative Screenwriting, Brooks elaborated on the writing process. He recalled,
"Little by little, every night, Gene and I met at his bungalow at the Bel Air Hotel. We ordered a pot of Earl Grey tea coupled with a container of cream and a small kettle of brown sugar cubes. To go with it we had a pack of British digestive biscuits. And step-by-step, ever so cautiously, we proceeded on a dark narrow twisting path to the eventual screenplay in which good sense and caution are thrown out the window and madness ensues". [20]
Brooks and Wilder disagreed over the sequence where Frankenstein and his creation perform "Puttin' on the Ritz". Brooks felt it was too silly to have the monster sing and dance, but eventually yielded to Wilder's arguments. [5] [18]
Unlike in many of his other films, Brooks does not appear onscreen in a significant role in Young Frankenstein, though he recorded several voice parts and portrays a German villager in one short scene. In 2012, Brooks explained why:
I wasn't allowed to be in it. That was the deal Gene Wilder had. He [said], "If you're not in it, I'll do it." [Laughs.] He [said], "You have a way of breaking the fourth wall, whether you want to or not. I just want to keep it. I don't want too much to be, you know, a wink at the audience. I love the script." He wrote the script with me. That was the deal. So I wasn't in it, and he did it. [21]
Brooks and producer Michael Gruskoff originally agreed to a deal with Columbia Pictures, but Columbia would not agree to a budget of more than $1.75 million whereas Brooks wanted at least $2.3 million. Columbia also was not happy making it in black and white, so Brooks and Gruskoff instead went to 20th Century-Fox for distribution when they agreed to a higher budget. [19] [22]
Principal photography began on February 19, 1974, and wrapped on May 3, 1974. [23] To recreate the visual style of the original Universal horror films, Brooks shot in black-and-white, employed vintage-style opening credits, used wipes and irises for scene transitions, and even used the original Kenneth Strickfaden lab equipment from the 1931 Frankenstein . [5]
Marty Feldman added a comic twist to his character, by deliberately swapping which side the hump on his back was located; when Doctor Frankenstein asks him about it, Igor replies simply: "What hump?" Wilder wrote the role specially for Feldman. [24]
Young Frankenstein was a box office success upon release. The film grossed $86.2 million on a $2.78 million budget. [3]
Young Frankenstein received acclaim from critics and currently holds a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 73 reviews, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The consensus reads, "Made with obvious affection for the original, Young Frankenstein is a riotously silly spoof featuring a fantastic performance by Gene Wilder." [25]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "Mel Brooks' funniest, most cohesive comedy to date," adding, "It would be misleading to describe 'Young Frankenstein,' written by Mr. Wilder and Mr. Brooks, as astoundingly witty, but it's a great deal of low fun of the sort that Mr. Brooks specializes in." [26] Roger Ebert gave the film a full four stars, calling it Brooks' "most disciplined and visually inventive film (it also happens to be very funny)." [27] Gene Siskel gave the film three stars out of four and wrote, "Part homage and part send-up, 'Young Frankenstein' is very funny in its best moments, but they're all too infrequent." [28] Variety declared, "The screen needs one outrageously funny Mel Brooks film each year, and Young Frankenstein is an excellent followup for the enormous audiences that howled for much of 1974 at Blazing Saddles .'" [29]
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times praised the film as "a likable, unpredictable blending of slapstick and sentiment." [30]
Gary Arnold of The Washington Post, who disliked Blazing Saddles, reported being "equally untickled" with Young Frankenstein and wrote that "Wilder and Brooks haven't dreamed up a funny plot. They simply rely on the old movie plots to get them through a rambling collection of scene parodies and a more or less constant stream of puns, double entendres and other verbal rib-pokers and thigh-slappers." [31] Tom Milne of the UK's The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote in a mixed review that "all too often Brooks resorts to the most clichéd sort of Carry On smut" and criticized Marty Feldman's "grotesquely unfunny mugging," but praised a couple of sequences (the flower-throwing scene and the Monster's encounter with the blind man) as "very close to brilliance" and called Peter Boyle as the Monster "one of the undiluted pleasures of the film (and the only actor ever to suggest that he might play the part as well as Karloff)." [32]
In his book Comedy-Horror Films: A Chronological History, 1914–2008, Bruce G. Hallenbeck lauded many of Young Frankenstein's scenes as classic comedy moments, and also praised the attention to detail the film shows in paying heartfelt homage to the classic horror films it references. He summed up that "Young Frankenstein is a movie for film buffs, but written, directed and performed in such a way that average Joes and Josephines can enjoy it just as much for its outrageous and wacky humor." [5]
Igor's line "Walk this way" in the film inspired the song of the same name by Aerosmith. [33] According to Gene Wilder, the joke was added while shooting the scene by Mel Brooks, inspired by the old "talcum powder" joke. [34] A partially contradictory account appears in eyE Marty, Feldman's posthumously published autobiography: Feldman recalls spontaneously doing the "walk this way" shtick to make his colleagues laugh, with Brooks then insisting, despite Wilder's and Feldman's reservations, that it stay in the film. [35]
Young Frankenstein became available on DVD on November 3, 1998. [36] The film was then released on DVD for the second time on September 5, 2006. [37] The film was then released on DVD for the third time on September 9, 2014, as a 40th anniversary edition along with a Blu-ray release. [38]
Brooks adapted the film into a musical of the same name which premiered in Seattle at the Paramount Theatre and ran from August 7 to September 1, 2007. [39] The musical opened on Broadway at the Lyric Theatre (then the Hilton Theatre) on November 8, 2007, and closed on January 4, 2009. It was nominated for three Tony Awards, and starred Roger Bart, Sutton Foster, Shuler Hensley, Megan Mullally, Christopher Fitzgerald, and Andrea Martin. [40]
The musical version was to be used as the basis of a live broadcast event on the ABC network in the last quarter of 2020, with Brooks producing, but it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [41]
Nominations [42]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
Blazing Saddles is a 1974 American satirical postmodernist Western black comedy film directed by Mel Brooks, who co-wrote the screenplay with Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg and Alan Uger, based on a story treatment by Bergman. The film stars Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder. Brooks appears in two supporting roles: Governor William J. Le Petomane, and a Yiddish-speaking Indian chief; he also dubs lines for one of Lili Von Shtupp's backing troupe and a cranky moviegoer. The supporting cast includes Slim Pickens, Alex Karras and David Huddleston, as well as Brooks regulars Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn and Harvey Korman. Bandleader Count Basie has a cameo as himself, appearing with his orchestra.
Melvin James Brooks is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. A recipient of numerous accolades, he is one of 21 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2015, a National Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2024.
Martin Alan Feldman was a British actor, comedian and comedy writer. He was known for his prominent, misaligned eyes.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a 1948 American horror comedy film directed by Charles Barton. The film features Count Dracula, who has partnered with Dr. Sandra Mornay in order to find a brain to reactivate Frankenstein's monster, and they find Wilbur Grey, the ideal candidate.
Bride of Frankenstein is a 1935 American Gothic science fiction horror film, and the first sequel to Universal Pictures' 1931 film Frankenstein. As with the first film, Bride of Frankenstein was directed by James Whale starring Boris Karloff as the Monster and Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein. The sequel features Elsa Lanchester in the dual role of Mary Shelley and the bride. Colin Clive reprises his role as Henry Frankenstein, and Ernest Thesiger plays the role of Doctor Septimus Pretorius. Oliver Peters Heggie plays the role of the old blind hermit.
Frankenstein is a 1931 American gothic pre-Code science fiction horror film directed by James Whale, produced by Carl Laemmle Jr., and adapted from a 1927 play by Peggy Webling, which in turn was based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell.
The Producers is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film. It was written and directed by Mel Brooks, and stars Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, and Kenneth Mars. The film is about a con artist theater producer and his accountant who scheme to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in a stage musical designed to fail. To this end, they find a playscript celebrating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and bring it to the stage. Because of this theme, The Producers was controversial from the start, and received mixed reviews. It became a cult film, and found a more positive critical reception later.
Silent Movie is a 1976 American satirical silent comedy film co-written, directed by and starring Mel Brooks, released by 20th Century Fox in summer 1976. The ensemble cast includes Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, and Sid Caesar, with cameos by Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Marcel Marceau, and Paul Newman as themselves, and character cameos by Harry Ritz of the Ritz Brothers, Charlie Callas, and Henny Youngman. The film was produced in the manner of an early-20th-century silent film, with intertitles instead of spoken dialogue; the soundtrack consists almost entirely of orchestral accompaniment and sound effects. It is an affectionate parody of slapstick comedies, including those of Charlie Chaplin, Mack Sennett, and Buster Keaton. The film satirizes the film industry, presenting the story of a film producer trying to obtain studio support to make a silent film in the 1970s.
Gene Wilder was an American actor, comedian, writer and filmmaker. He was mainly known for his comedic roles, but also for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). He collaborated with Mel Brooks on the films The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974), and with Richard Pryor in the films Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1991).
Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a 1993 adventure comedy film and a parody of the Robin Hood story. The film was produced and directed by Mel Brooks, co-written by Brooks, Evan Chandler, and J. David Shapiro based on a story by Chandler and Shapiro, and stars Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, and Dave Chappelle in his film debut. It includes frequent comedic references to previous Robin Hood films, particularly Prince of Thieves, and the 1938 Errol Flynn adaptation The Adventures of Robin Hood. Brooks himself had previously created the short-lived sitcom When Things Were Rotten in the mid-1970s, which also spoofed the Robin Hood legend.
The Ladies Man is a 1961 American comedy film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It was released on June 28, 1961, by Paramount Pictures.
Igor, or sometimes Ygor, is a stock character, a sometimes hunch-backed laboratory assistant to many types of Gothic villains or as a fiendish character who assists only himself, the latter most prominently portrayed by Bela Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). He is familiar from many horror films and horror film parodies. He is traditionally associated with mad scientists, particularly Victor Frankenstein, although Frankenstein has neither a lab assistant nor any association with a character named Igor in the original Mary Shelley novel. The Igor of popular parlance is a composite character, based on characters created for the Universal Studios film franchise. In the first Frankenstein film (1931), Fritz served the role; in the sequels, a different physically deformed character, Ygor, is featured, though Ygor is not an assistant in those films.
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother is a 1975 American musical comedy film with Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Roy Kinnear, and Leo McKern. The film was Wilder's directorial debut, from his own original script.
The Ghost of Frankenstein is a 1942 American horror film directed by Erle C. Kenton and starring Cedric Hardwicke, Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi. It is the fourth film in the Frankenstein series by Universal Pictures, and the follow-up to Son of Frankenstein (1939). The film's plot follows the previous film's plot: Frankenstein's Monster and his companion Ygor are chased out of town. They go to another small town to encourage the younger son of Henry Frankenstein to continue his father's experiments, so that Ygor can have revenge against his enemies and his brain transplanted into the Monster's skull.
The Last Remake of Beau Geste is a 1977 British historical comedy film directed, co-written and starring Marty Feldman. It is a satire loosely based on the 1924 novel Beau Geste, a frequently-filmed story of brothers and their adventures in the French Foreign Legion. The humor is based heavily upon wordplay and absurdity. Feldman plays Digby Geste, the awkward and clumsy "identical twin" brother of Michael York's Beau, the dignified, aristocratic swashbuckler.
"Walk this way" is a recurrent pun in a number of comedy films and television shows. It may be derived from an old vaudeville joke that refers to the double usage of the word "way" in English as both a direction and a manner.
John Leonard Morris was an American film, television, and Broadway composer, dance arranger, conductor, and trained concert pianist. He collaborated with filmmakers Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder.
Young Frankenstein is a musical with a book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, and music and lyrics by Brooks. It is based on the 1974 comedy film of the same name written by Gene Wilder and Brooks who also directed and has described it as his best film. It is a parody of the horror film genre, especially the 1931 Universal Pictures adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its 1935 and 1939 sequels, Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein.
Elizabeth Frankenstein is a fictional character first introduced in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. In both the novel and its various film adaptations, she is the fiancée of Victor Frankenstein.
Army of Frankensteins is a 2014 American science fiction horror film written and directed by Ryan Bellgardt. It stars Jordan Farris as a time-traveling youth who, along with multiple versions of Frankenstein's monster, are pulled into the American Civil War.
'Young Frankenstein' is "by far the best movie I ever made. Not the funniest — 'Blazing Saddles' was the funniest, and hot on its heels would be 'The Producers.' But as a writer-director, it is by far my finest.
James Van Hise. "Films Fantastique presents Young Frankenstein". Rocket's Blast Comicollector #146 (Nov. 1978), pp. 6–14. On the writing, pre-production and filming of the picture.