Gene Wilder Brings His Grandfather’s Monster Back to Life in Mel Brooks’ Tight Satire

Gene Wilder plays a young doctor who inherits his grandfather’s castle and his dark experiments in this 1974 comedy from Mel Brooks. The film spoofs the horror pictures of the 1930s, especially those built around Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, and it does so with a running time of 106 minutes. The jokes land again and again, and the film holds together as a tight, deliberate piece of satire.

Trailer, via American Film Institute.

The Setup

Frederick Frankenstein is a physician teaching at an American medical school. He wants nothing to do with his grandfather Victor Frankenstein, whom he calls “Fronkensteen.” When he learns he has inherited the family castle in Transylvania, he travels to Europe to see the property. At the train station, he meets Igor, a hunchbacked servant whose grandfather worked for Victor, and a woman named Inga. Once at the estate, he meets Frau Blücher, the stern housekeeper.

Frederick finds a hidden door into Victor’s lab and reads his grandfather’s private journals. He decides to take up the work of reanimating the dead. He and Igor steal a recently executed criminal’s body. He sends Igor to get the brain of a dead “scientist and saint” named Hans Delbrück. Igor breaks Delbrück’s brain and takes one marked “Abnormal” instead. Frederick puts it into the body and brings the Monster to life.

The Cast

Wilder plays the doctor with nervous energy. Peter Boyle plays the Monster. Marty Feldman plays Igor. Madeline Kahn plays Elizabeth. Cloris Leachman plays Frau Blücher. Teri Garr plays Inga. Kenneth Mars plays Inspector Kemp. Richard Haydn plays Herr Falkstein. Liam Dunn plays Mr. Hilltop. Danny Goldman plays a medical student. Oscar Beregi Jr. plays a cruel jailor. Arthur Malet plays the village elder.

The film gives each actor a distinct role. Feldman’s Igor swaps which side his hump sits on, and when asked about it, he simply says, “What hump?” Wilder wrote the part for Feldman. Teri Garr tried out for Elizabeth but won the part of Inga after impressing Brooks with her audition. John Carradine and Leon Askin both had parts cut from the final film. Carradine voiced the late Dr. Frankenstein off screen, and Askin was Herr Waldman, an executor of the Baron’s will. A real member of the House of Franckenstein, which Mary Shelley drew her title from, appears in the film as an extra under the stage name Clement St. George.

The Parody

Brooks shot the picture entirely in black and white, a rare choice in the 1970s. He used 1930s-style opening credits and scene transitions, like iris outs, wipes and fades to black. The lab equipment was built by Kenneth Strickfaden for the 1931 film Frankenstein. John Morris provided the period score.

The whole look is meant to bring back the feeling of the older horror films. Brooks and Wilder wrote the screenplay together, and the film draws directly on the Universal pictures of the 1930s, especially those based on Shelley’s novel.

The Monster

The Monster attacks Frederick when Igor lights a match, nearly strangling him before being put down. The townspeople gather to talk about their fear of Frederick carrying on his grandfather’s work. Inspector Kemp, a one-eyed police officer with a false arm and a heavy German accent, comes to the doctor’s house and demands Frederick promise he will not build another monster. Returning to the lab, Frederick finds Blücher letting the creature out. She tells him the Monster loves violin music, her own romance with Frederick’s grandfather, and her plan for the coming events.

The film never explains how the Monster’s brain works. That is the point. The joke depends on the absurdity of a man raised from the dead acting like a child, and the film lets that run without stopping to explain it.

The Comedy

The humor comes from the contrast between the serious tone of the older films and the absurdity of the characters. Frederick starts as a serious, educated man and becomes a mad scientist. The Monster is a gentle fool. Igor is a nervous, comic sidekick. The townspeople are terrified of a harmless creature.

The film knows exactly what it is doing. It spoofs the horror genre while staying faithful to its rules. The jokes land because they come from the setup, not from a break in the fourth wall. Brooks does not appear onscreen, though he recorded voice parts and plays a Transylvanian villager in one short scene. Wilder took over the lead role because Brooks had a habit of breaking the fourth wall, as he explained in 2012:

“I wasn’t allowed to be in it. That was the deal Gene Wilder had. He [said], ‘If you’re not in it, I’ll do it.’ [Laughs.] He [said], ‘You have a way of breaking the fourth wall, whether you want to or not. I just want to keep it. I don’t want too much to be, you know, a wink at the audience. I love the script.’ He wrote the script with me. That was the deal. So I wasn’t in it, and he did it.”

The Legacy

Young Frankenstein was released by 20th Century Fox on December 15, 1974. It was a critical and commercial hit. It ranks number 28 on Total Film magazine’s readers’ “List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time,” No. 56 on Bravo’s list of the “100 Funniest Movies,” and No. 13 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 funniest American movies. In 2003, it was deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the United States government.

The film has held up well. Its jokes remain funny, and its construction remains clever. It is a comedy that respects the material it is mocking, which is rarer than it should be.

Final Word

Young Frankenstein is a masterful comedy that earns its place among the best films of its kind. It spoofs the horror films of the 1930s with genuine affection and genuine wit. The cast is excellent, the direction is assured, and the jokes are sharp. It is a film that rewards repeated viewings and stands as one of the great comedies of the era.

classic film · comedy · Gene Wilder · Mel Brooks · Young Frankenstein