| There are only a couple of movies that almost every American can quote, indeed can follow the script in sing-a-long fashion. Casablana is one, the Wizard of Oz another, and Young Frankenstein is certainly to be counted in among this elite group of movies we know by heart.
The familarity of the movie dialog doesn’t detract from the comic delight of the film, it adds to it. You know when your favorite line is going to come up and the anticipation grows as you wait for it. The Peter Boyle’s dapper monster and Gene Wilder as his creator and nervous mentor doing t heir unforgettable rendition of ‘Putting on the Ritz’... Teri Garr’s Inga and Gene Wilder’s Professor struggling with the secret door... Marty Feldman’s Igor stealing the wrong brain.. everybody has a most cherished character and scene.
The black and white cinematography allows director Mel Brooks to get away with references to older movies and what could be fairly gooey special effects (brains in jars) without distracting from the comic intention. In fact, since it harkens back to a completely obsolete technology “Young Frankenstein” has hardly aged at all since it was released in 1974. The film nips right along, with the assistance of Gene Wilder’s over-the-top, irritable Professor Frankenstein and Peter Boyle’s long-suffering, urbane Monster. My own favorite is the brilliant, engaging Marty Feldman as Igor, rolling his remarkable eyes and calling up the ghost of Groucho Marx, who presides in spirit over this film, right along with Boris Karloff’s shade and the words of Mary Shelley. Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks won an Oscar for their screenplay, as well they should have, except maybe not for adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel. It is less an adaptation than a riff on the novel; true to the general plot and even to some of the scenes, it is wholly original and, in American cinema, without equal.
“Young Frankenstein” has a sparkling cast and a great script and it is not at all terrifying. What more could you want in a film for this particular Halloween?
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