Today, we're all about Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks' best movie by far. Sure, Blazing Saddles may be funnier, but this one is stunning to look at, full of heart, and even the score is gorgeous. (Why oh why is the soundtrack out of print? I don't even have my LP copy to listen to anymore.)
200 years ago, Mary Wollstonecraft had a dream about a scientist creating a human, and that led to her invention of science fiction. Some 150 years later, also inspired by a dream, Gene Wilder sat down with a yellow legal pad and wrote a few pages of story about the grandson of Frankenstein. Once the ideas were developed, Mel Brooks brought the story to life (with help from a lot of the same cast and crew from Blazing Saddles).
Sidebar: How weird is it that both those films were released in just ten months? I'd argue that no director has ever had a better year in film history than Mel's 1974. (Okay, Spielberg's 1993 was pretty amazing.)
I've probably seen this one 20 times, so the movie holds no surprises for me anymore (though I was still sad I didn't get a chance to see it during its recent, brief revival on the big screen). While almost all the jokes hold up to repeated viewing, today I was amazed at how emotional the film can still make me.
Reading obituaries and tributes to Gene Wilder, I kept reading that he made things funny by keeping them real and heartfelt. I hadn't put that together, since I saw most of his best work during my most formative years and wasn't always paying attention to emotions in hilarious comedies. But even with something as early as The Producers, Leo Bloom is hilarious only because we can care about him. This movie takes the time to let us sympathize with the characters (otherwise the frenetic jokes would be less funny, like a Scary Movie-type spoof). The scene with the creature in jail, being tormented by his keepers, has no laughs at all -- it exists just to stir our hearts.
The movie also takes the time to set scenes. Long, moody shots of the village and castle, and plenty of time for us to hear the score, not only ground the jokes, but make the whole conceit funnier as a specific parody of James Whale's movies about Frank. (The funniest scenes, for me, are particular burlesques of scenes from Whale.)
Sidebar #2: Like a few previous entries here, Greg Proops presented this film at his film club, where he recorded a podcast of jokes and commentary. He also relates his memories of Wilder and Marty Feldman. Listen to it here.
2016 has been a brutal year in a lot of ways (no politics talk here, promise). I was upset to lose David Bowie and Prince, but neither of them hurt me as much as the loss of Gene Wilder. He hasn't been doing much lately, but I love him as a person, and his best work stands as some of the best funny movies ever made. (I haven't seen all his work, but I get the impression that a lot of the 80s stuff is, franky, skippable.) There hasn't been a year since I started high school that I haven't seen, and enjoyed, and been cheered up by, a film of his. On hearing of his death, I didn't do a memorial watch of everything, like I did with Harold Ramis, but so much of Gene's work lives in my heart and inspires my sense of both comedy and art.
I'm glad that Mel is still around (and very much in the public eye) to carry the torch for all the departed friends who made this film, and that he still hangs out with Carl Reiner every day. (As if it weren't bad enough that Mel lost Anne Bancroft, Sid Caesar left us this year too.) I haven't yet read his book about this movie, but I definitely intend to.
This movie is indelible for comedy fans and horror fans, and even just for fans of movies in general. I'd argue that it's the best parody film ever, mostly because of its attention to detail and loving tribute to the genre. Also, it's so beloved that, like Universal's Frank franchise (Frank-chise? probably not), it's spawned lots of peripheral products, like toys and stage productions and such. Tomorrow, I'm talking about two of them.
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