Visually, it’s a very calm ilm, with Brooks
and DP Gerald Hirschfeld painstakingly
recreating the stately camera work and elegant
black-and-white look that James Whale (director
of the Boris KarloffFrankensteinmovies) or Tod
Browning (who turned Bela Lugosi into Dracula)
gave their 1930s Universal horrors. If it weren’t it
might not get away with many of its gags, which
can teeter on the edge of end-of-the-pier
corniness. Whether it’s horses whinnying in fear
at every mention of the name Frau Blücher
(nneeeiiggghh) or Marty Feldman delivering
punchlines directly into the camera, eyebrows
awaggle and googly eyes agoggling, it’s frequently
the stuff of panto, all arch innuendo and
deliberate misunderstanding. This is much of the
ilm’s pleasure, the combining of gags written
with intricate wit with those that slap you round
the face with a big, daft, honking crassness. It’s
all in the telling. Even the punchline you can see
charging towards you from miles away can still
land when the delivery is perfect, and there is not
a single joke here that’s badly told. That’s what
happens when you give one of the great comedy
directors a cast of unrivalled gifts.
Rarely has there been this much comictalent
in a single ilm. Wilder, Feldman, Madeline Kahn
— these are among the inest comic performersTeri Garr, Gene
Wilder, Marty Feldman
and Mel Brooks
createamonster
— specifically
a strapped-down
Peter Boyle.
in cinema history, which is to take nothing from
the enormously good Teri Garr, Peter Boyle, Cloris
Leachman and Kenneth Mars (whose manic, Peter
Sellers-esque turns in this andThe Producers
mean he should never be forgotten). Even Gene
Hackman, not exactly renowned for being able to
ind the funnybone, is a riot in a glorious cameo as
the blind hermit whotries to assist the Monster.
Yet there is no evidence of competition between
them. Nobody is trying to elbow anyone else out
of the way for the bigger laugh. If you watch a
modern cast of comparable fame you canoften
see the improvisation, a desperate need to have
the inal, funniest word. InYoung Frankenstein
there is not a syllable that doesn’t need to be
there. Joke done, move on. Sometimes it’s one
actor’s turn to deliver the laugh; sometimes it’s
someone else’s. Take thelegendary ‘Puttin’ On
The Ritz’ sequence. Wilder, as anyone who’s
watchedThe Producersknows, is not averse to
a screaming,limbs-lailingperformance, yelling
at a joke until it crawls, wrung-dry, off stage.
Though there’s every opportunity to mug,
throughout Frederick’s tap dance with his
Monster, Wilder’s face is inert. As Boyle,
as the Monster, passionately keens his
“HEETNONNARREEZ” line, Frederick just
stares on quietly, proudly. And it’s weepingly
funny. It’s one joke throughout the whole song,
and it never loses its strength by repetition,
because everyone is absolutely committed. That’s
the kind of teamwork that makes a great comedy,
and it happens throughoutYoung Frankenstein.
There is a heart here, too. It’s a story, for
most of the characters, about accepting who you
are, rather than being who society believes you
should be. Whether it’s Frederick facing up to his
past, Kahn’s Elizabeth throwing off her society
lady furs to become the shock-haired sexually
liberated lunatic squealing to get out, or the
Monster learning to live with the fact that he’s
alive, there are genuine, well-drafted character
arcs. With jokes about hugeschwanzstuckers.
Wilder would go on to write many screenplays
afterYoung Frankenstein, but none would match
its wit. He would have many more hits as an actor,
but none would so well employ his loudest and
quietest gifts. This would, creatively, be his apex.
Wilder died on 29 August 2016, aged 83, 42 years
after the release ofYoung Frankenstein.Isitsad
that one of the great comedians did his best work
when he still had exactly half his life to go, that
he’d never reach those highs again? No, because
he did what anyone wants before they die: he left
behind something to show he mattered, that he
was here, and he left the place more cheerful than
when he arrived. He will always have this one
perfect, strange creation to his name, a beast made
of mismatched pieces that somehow seamlessly
lock. It screamed into life from hopelessness, and
as long as there is breath to laugh, it will never die.YOUNG FRANKENSTEINIS OUT NOW ON
DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD.