Young Frankenstein - Special Edition

Comedy, Horror

Peter Boyle	The Monster
Gene Wilder	Dr. Frederick Frankenstein
Marty Feldman	Igor
Teri Garr	Inga
Gene Hackman	Blind Hermit
Madeline Kahn	Elizabeth
Cloris Leachman	Frau Blücher
Kenneth Mars	Hans Wilhelm Friederich Kemp
Richard Haydn	Gerhard Falkstein
Liam Dunn	Mr. Hilltop
Danny Goldman	Medical Student
Anne Beesley
Oscar Beregi Jr.	Sadistic Jailor
Rusty Blitz
Mel Brooks

Director	Mel Brooks
Producer	Michael Gruskoff
Writer	Mary Shelley; Gene Wilder; <b>Mel Brooks</b>; Mel Brooks
Cinematography	Gerald Hirschfeld
Musician	John Morris; Irving Berlin; Franz Schubert
User Credit 1	John C. Howard
User Credit 2	Dorothy Jeakins

"Young Frankenstein" is a tongue-in-cheek comedy about the heir to the original Dr. Frankenstein. While the young Frankenstein initially refuses to admit to his background (stating that his surname is pronounced "Frahnkensteen") he finds he is willed his grandfather's estate. Once there, he finds Igor and a sultry mistress and is compelled to complete his grandfather's work. What then commences is a daring and hilarious attempt to find all the necessary parts to reanimate a corpse, without alerting the local police and townspeople. The creature is successfully reanimated, and as the young Frankenstein takes him to public displays (including having the creature dance to "puttin' on the Ritz") the creature begins to get into misadventures of his own. Completely misunderstood tragedies cause the townfolk to turn on both creator and creature leaving their lives hanging in the balance.

If you were to argue that Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein ranks among the top-ten funniest movies of all time, nobody could reasonably dispute the claim. Spoofing classic horror in the way that Brooks's previous film Blazing Saddles sent up classic Westerns, the movie is both a loving tribute and a raucous, irreverent parody of Universal's classic horror films Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Filming in glorious black and white, Brooks re-created the Frankenstein laboratory using the same equipment from the original Frankenstein (courtesy of designer Kenneth Strickfaden), and this loving attention to physical and stylistic detail creates a solid foundation for nonstop comedy. The story, of course, involves Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) and his effort to resume experiments in re-animation pioneered by his late father. (He's got some help, since dad left behind a book titled How I Did It.) Assisting him is the hapless hunchback Igor (Marty Feldman) and the buxom but none-too-bright maiden Inga (Teri Garr), and when Frankenstein succeeds in creating his monster (Peter Boyle), the stage is set for an outrageous revision of the Frankenstein legend. With comedy highlights too numerous to mention, Brooks guides his brilliant cast (also including Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, and Gene Hackman in a classic cameo role) through scene after scene of inspired hilarity. Indeed, Young Frankenstein is a charmed film, nothing less than a comedy classic, representing the finest work from everyone involved. Not one joke has lost its payoff, and none of the countless gags have lost their zany appeal. From a career that includes some of the best comedies ever made, this is the film for which Mel Brooks will be most fondly remembered. Befitting a classic, the Special Edition DVD includes audio commentary by Mel Brooks, a "making of" documentary, interviews with the cast, hilarious bloopers and outtakes, and the original theatrical trailers. No video library should be without a copy of Young Frankenstein. And just remember--that's Fronkensteen. --Jeff Shannon