Young Frankenstein

In the 14 years that I've been doing this blog, it seems that I've never done a post on Young Frankenstein. It's been in the FXM rotation recently, and will have two airings tomorrow (Mar. 14), at 4:00 AM and 1:10 PM. So, since I had recorded it during one of the previous FXM showings a few weeks earlier, I made a point of sitting down and watching it to do a post on now.

Gene Wilder plays Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, pronounced FRONK-en-steen, thank you very much, an instructor at a medical school in something close to the present day when the film opens. At least, everybody looks like they're from the 1970s, and references are made to it being the 20th century. During one of his lectures, a man who's clearly not a medical student comes into the lecture hall and wants to see the good doctor after the lecture. It turns out that Frederick is the grandson of Victor, the Dr. Frankenstein who worked on reanimating the dead and created the famous monster (never mind that it just being a grandson, this means the dates don't work out at all). Whoever has owned the Frankstein estates in Transylvania has just died, and Frederick being the closest living relative, he's bequeathed the properties. So he leaves his fiancée Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn) behind and sets out for Transylvania.

Transylvania, for no good reason, seems trapped in the 19th century. There don't seem to be any cars and almost no electricity other than what the Frankenstein castle is able to produce. Also, everybody speaks German, which might have been more likely during the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but certainly not by the Communist era. Frederick is met at the train station by Igor (pronounced EYE-gore, thank you very much), a hunchbacked assistant, who takes Frederick to the castle. Also in the wagon waiting for Frederick is Inga (Teri Garr), who is intended to serve as another of Frederick's assistants.

Running the household is Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachmann) who, it turns out, wants Frederick to continue the work of previous generations of Frankensteins, even though he's also considered himself a serious doctor. She lures Frederick into the laboratory, where he finds all the equipment now covered in cobwebs. But finding Victor's private journal, he's suddenly curious as to whether Victor's procedures actually work. He and Igor obtain a corpse but need a preserved brain. There's the brain of a prominent local scientist, but Igor has an accident and winds up bringing back an "abnormal" brain instead.

Dr. Frankenstein is able to reanimate the corpse, but the living corpse, once again dubbed Frankenstein's monster (Peter Boyle), has some serious problems. He can't speak, and has a pretty severe fear of fire. He also doesn't want to be chained up, leading to unintentional violence. The townsfolk, led by police inspector Kemp (Kenneth Mars), remember Victor's work, and they understandably don't want another monster running loose. To complicate matters for Frederick, he falls in love with Inga despite being engaged to Elizabeth, who sends a telegram to inform Frederick she's coming to Transylvania.

Young Frankenstein is a Mel Brooks movie, and how much you like it is going to depend upon how much you like Mel Brooks' style of humor. For me, I find that when it works, it works really well, but when it doesn't, it can be extremely irritating. As such, I found Young Frankenstein rather uneven. The bits that were more directly parodying Universal's horror movies of the 1930s worked well, such as the monster's scene with the little girl, and another scene with a blind hermit (Gene Hackman). Others, like a running gag about mention of Frau Blücher's name being accompanied by horses whinnying, fell flat. I prefer some of the other movies from Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, but also understand that a lot of people are going to love Young Frankenstein.