Young Frankenstein

Alternate titles : None

Tagline : "The Scariest Comedy of All Time!"

Spoofing the old monster movies of the 1950's, this comedy from Mel Brooks takes a slant on the old Frankenstein tale. Starting off in the USA, and young Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) finds he's just inherited the old family castle in Transylvania.

Despite being eager to distance himself from the works of his Grandfather Victor (my name is pronounced Fronk-on-Steen), he accepts his families estate and heads on over to Eastern Europe to check the castle out for himself. Of course, upon discovering the secret library in the hidden cellar, it's not too long before he's following in his Grandfather's footsteps and plundering the nearby graveyard's in search of body parts.

But disaster strikes when his newly created 'super-human' breaks out and goes on the rampage because Frederick's assistant Ygor (Marty Feldman) stole the wrong brain from the nearby hospital ("it was someone called A.B. Normal").

With angry villagers on the march, Fredrick hopes he can tame the beast with a bit of love and affection, but will teaching him to sing and tap-dance be enough to quell their anger and, more importantly, will the scientific community marvel at his creation following their rendition of "Putting on the Ritz"?

Originally released back in 1978, the film was co-written by Gene Wilder and filmed entirely in black and white to capture that old "monster movie" feel. British comedy actor, the late Marty Feldman, is aptly cast as Ygor, as is US TV actor Peter Boyle as the Monster. This is definitely one of the better horror spoofs I've seen. Look out for a young(ish) Gene Hackman as the blind man

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Most of the equipment seen in the lab were the original screen props used in the original Frankenstein films.
• Mel Brooks had originally wanted Madeline Kahn to play Inga, but she asked to play Elizabeth instead, so he offered the role to Terri Garr.
• Although Gene Wilder thought it would work, Mel Brooks was unsure about the "Putting on the Ritz" dance scene and wanted to cut it from the film. It was only after seeing the test audiences found it hilariously funny he decided to keep it in.
• The scene by the pond where the little girl says "No more flowers, what shall we throw in now?" was a spoof of the scene in the original Frankenstein, where he throws the girl into the water (except here he doesn't).
• The Blind Man's line "Where are you going, I was going to make espresso's" was not in the original script and was ad-libbed on set by Gene Hackman.
• Several scenes cut from the film were included on the special edition DVD release, including a scene showing the reading of Beaufort Frankenstein's will, as voiced by John Carradine. Fredrick smashing a street busker's violin. A highway robber coming off worse in a confrontation with the monster. An extended scene showing Inspector Kemp arriving at the castle. 2 scenes between Fredrick Frankenstein and Inga trying hard not to get carried away with their feelings and an unused end credits scene with the entire cast parading across the set in front of the camera.
• Another deleted scene, showing Fredrick demonstrating the monster's sense of balance using milk bottles, also turned up in the 2008 special edition Blu-ray.
• Gene Hackman was not originally given a screen credit in the original release of the film.

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