Walk this way
Fredrick Frankenstein is a serious scientist who does serious work. His attempt to try to forget his grandfather’s insane work of re-animating dead tissue, thus life, is getting harder and harder to resist. When he gets word he is the proud owner of his grandfather’s castle in Translyvania, with laboratory, assistant and hump-backed man, he shoves off to Translyvania to start a new life. What he soon finds out is that his grandfather might have been on to something and the possibility of re-animating the dead may not be as insane as he first thought.
Before I saw Blazing Saddles I saw Young Frankenstein. Even as a young boy I knew that this movie was funny as hell. I knew that for years to come there would be pieces of the film that I would come to appreciate. The simple jokes I got when I was young, than there were jokes like one of the villagers running into a tree in the foreground of the shot while trying to make a raid on ‘The Monster’. That’s why I appreciate Mel Brook’s and Gene Wilder’s adaption of James Whale’s classic; it’s always going to be fresh no matter how many times you view it. The comedy that these men put together was both intelligent and immature at the same time. Unlike today’s comedies, such as Scary Movie or I’m Gonna Get You Sucka!, where the comedy is cheap and more gimmicky, the flow of comedy from Young Frankenstein goes with the story and doesn’t stop to make you laugh. That’s what makes this film so intelligent and classic because sadly enough it’s so rare to find something as fantastic as this movie.
Aside from this, casting this amount of talented comedians and actors into one film is rare. Gene Wilder’s serious Dr. Frankenstein is the perfect center for the universe of talent on the set. The best casting they could have done is the late Peter Boyle as ‘The Monster’. He had to have loved the role where there was barely any speaking because he revived it on the show Everybody Loves Raymond (Halloween episode). As for the other cast members, Marty Feldman (as Igor, or is it pronounced E-gor?) who had a very short-lived acting career, regretfully, and members Teri Garr and Madeline Kahn completely bought into what Brooks and Wilder’s script. They embraced this comedy like it was a family member and it shows. Of course, one of the best roles which generally goes unnoticed, but should be appreciated, is that of Cloris Leachman’s Frau Blucher (sorry, I don’t know the keystroke to turn that German). To this day I’m still not sure why the horses whine when her name is uttered. There had been rumors of her name meaning the word ‘glue’, but according to many websites that has been debunked. Still, she is sassy, funny and horrible at the same time, which is perfect. Finally, a role which hasn’t been mentioned much, but is still quoted by a lot of fanboys, like myself, is from Kenneth Mars’ Inspector Kemp. A character with one hand who safely, humorously mispronounces everything. All of these folks bought into the movie and that makes the movie a classic on its own. Nothing to date could compare, at least comedy-wise, to the cooperation and passion they all put into their wacky roles.
So, are there any flaws to the film? Not at all. The only flaw that I could see in this film is that it wasn’t as funny as Blazing Saddles, but Young Frankenstein is pretty damn funny. It’s not simply a parody of a serious film from James Whale, rather it’s a homage to everything Whale loved about his film, with a twist of Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. They could not have honored the classic Frankenstein any better than they did. Shooting it in black and white, casting the perfect players, it could not have been more perfect and more honorable.
Blu, but in black and white
I always thought DVD was a huge step forward from VHS, but now I see DVD playing the role of VHS compared to Blu-ray. The fact that Blu-ray can upgrade black and white into a higher quality of black and white is simply amazing. It looks better than I had hoped, the 1080 shines perfectly through (maybe that’s what ‘p’ should mean in 1080p). It preserves this classic comedy in the best possible quality. According to Mel Brooks on his visual commentary, it also preserves him as well (yeah, he needs that). As for the audio side of things, you get lossless audio in 5.1 DTS HD. Sound effects sound beautiful, the music sounds superb, and you truly will be just as happy with what you hear as what you see in Young Frankenstein on Blu-ray.
As for the monstrous features, here’s what you get:
• Inside The Lab: Secret Formulas in the Making Of Young Frankenstein BonusView – picture-in-picture mode featuring all-new on-camera interviews with Mel Brooks, Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman and others
• It’s Alive! Creating A Monster Classic featurette
• Transylvanian Lullaby: The Music of John Morris featurette
• The Franken-Track: A Monstrous Conglomeration of Trivia
• 17 Deleted/Extended Scenes in HD
• “Blucher Button” interactive feature
• Isolated Score Track
• Commentary by Director Mel Brooks
• Making FrankenSense of Young Frankenstein featurette
• Outtakes/Bloopers
• Deleted Scenes
• Interviews with Marty Feldman, Gene Wilder & Cloris Leachman
• Still Galleries – 19 individual production photograph galleries
• Theatrical trailers
• TV spots
What’s really amazing about these features, especially the featurettes, is that they aren’t simply filler. They are good featurettes that have length to them. Fox example, the It’s Alive! Creating A Monster Classic featurette is about 20-30 minutes in length and gives you a good insight about the making of the film, the picking of the cast and a few other details to help make the movie deeper. Comedies rarely get this many features, this classic deserved this list (if not more). Another cool feature that you can turn on during the film, though it does get in the way of the movie, is the visual commentary. That is entertainment! Brooks is hilarious as hell and he doesn’t fail to disappoint, even at the age of 900.