Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s
monster monster comedyTHE EMPIRE
MASTERPIECE
YOUNG
FRANKENSTEIN
WORDSOLLY RICHARDSTO SAY THAT in the early ’70s Gene Wilder
was in the midst of a career slump might sound
absurd. The string of lops he was enduring
included the incontrovertibly brilliant The
Producers and the now cult hit Willy Wonka &
The Chocolate Factory. Sure, people may love them
now, but not many wanted to see them then. Off
the boil as an actor, it was both the worst and best
time for Wilder to venture into screenwriting. On
the downside, nobody was really watching him.
On the plus side, nobody was really watching him.
Wilder started playing with an idea he’d had
for a little while: what if Victor Frankenstein,
the hero/villain of Mary Shelley’s classic novelFrankenstein, had a grandson who was
embarrassed by his ancestor’s experiments with
cut-and-shut cadavers? What if he wanted to lead
a normal life but was tempted back to his genetic
destiny, inishing what ol’ grandpappy started,
with the help of sundry idiots in a spooky castle?
During shooting on Blazing Saddles, which
would soon be the massive hit Wilder needed,
not that he knew it at the time, he approached
that ilm’s director, Mel Brooks, with the
suggestion of collaboration. Tickled by the idea,
Brooks agreed to co-write and direct. Together
they constructed one of the most ingeniously
stupid ilms ever made.1974 / RATED PG