‘Young Frankenstein’ 50th anniversary: Celebrating the Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder horror comedy

1974 was a good year for one of the greatest comedy pairings in cinema history, with Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder ending the year with not one, but two films in the top five. Ten months after the release of “Blazing Saddles,” the duo had another hit with “Young Frankenstein,” which debuted on Dec. 15, 1974. Read on as we celebrate the “Young Frankenstein” 50th anniversary.

Wilder had an idea for a new “Frankenstein” script, but Brooks felt like that story had been overdone. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Universal Pictures had become famous for bringing monsters to life on screen — and infamous for the numerous sequels their successes spawned. In the case of the “Frankenstein” franchise, the studio delivered eight films, ranging from “Bride of Frankenstein” to “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” to “The Ghost of Frankenstein,” between the original in 1931 and the final in 1948. But Wilder had a comic spin on the idea — what if the crazed doctor’s grandson was ashamed of his family history and wanted nothing to do with them? Brooks loved the idea, and the duo began to perfect the script Wilder had already begun.

Wilder plays young Frederick Frankenstein, a physician so repulsed by his infamous grandfather Victor’s mad experiments, that he wants nothing to do with the legacy, to the point that he pronounces his name “Fronkensteen.” But his curiosity leads him to Transylvania after he inherits the family property, temporarily leaving his socialite fiancee Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn) behind. Once in the legendary country, he encounters the hunchbacked Igor (Marty Feldman), the sultry Inga (Teri Garr), and the stern housekeeper Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman). When the young doctor finds grandpa’s journals, he becomes obsessed with resuming the experiments, and unwittingly reanimates an executed criminal with an abnormal brain, resulting in another Monster (Peter Boyle). When Elizabeth shows up unexpectedly, and the townspeople discover the goings-on, all comedy hell breaks loose.

Part satire, part loving homage to the horror classics of yesteryear, “Young Frankenstein” was shot in black-and-white, a practice largely out of vogue at the time, with vintage-style opening credits. Renowned electrical special effects creator Kenneth Strickfaden had begun his decades-long career with the 1931 “Frankenstein;” Brooks’ use of the original lab equipment from that film marked the end of Strickfaden’s career before his retirement.

It’s hard to make a successful comedy. Even a brilliantly written script can fall flat without the right performers in the right roles — who must have chemistry — and can deliver one-liners with a deadpan precision. The stellar cast of “Young Frankenstein” delivers — from hilariously hard-to-understand German accents to an unexpected cameo by one of the biggest actors of the time (Gene Hackman as the blind man) to dead-on delivery of lines about an “enormous schwanzstucker” to a perfectly placed limp that inspired Aerosmith’s 1975 song “Walk This Way.” “Young Frankenstein” is as brilliantly a choreographed comedy as any 1930s Busby Berkeley musical.

On a $2.78 million budget, the third and final pairing between Brooks and Wilder grossed $86.2 million, finishing as the third-highest grossing film released in 1974 — right behind “Blazing Saddles.” Brooks only directed Wilder in three films, but all three are classics, and have been preserved in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Their first collaboration had been in 1967 on “The Producers,” for which Brooks won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and which garnered Wilder his only acting bid (for supporting).

Brooks was a double-Oscar nominee in 1975, earning bids for Best Original Song (shared) for the title song to “Blazing Saddles,” and for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Young Frankenstein,” which he shared with Wilder.

Brooks typically appears in his films, but only provided voices in “Young Frankenstein,” including a wolf howl, a cat, and the voice of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. But he assembled some of the premier comedy performers of their day, with Wilder, Boyle, Feldman, Leachman, Garr, and Kahn making a timeless classic that will be enjoyed for generations. With the passing of Garr a few weeks ago, all of these comedy legends have passed on with the exception of 98-year-old Brooks, who has quite the comedy legacy to be proud of.

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