Well, we've talked about the greatest comedy in Blazing Saddles for which has turned 50 years of age. Now where I am going to talk about the greatest and perfect Halloween comedy that is Young Frankenstein, who has well turned 50 years of age. This is movie I declare as one of Gene Wilder's greatest performances of all time, though will get to him later. The film was the third collaboration with both Gene Wilder as well as the legendary comedic director Mel Brooks, Brooks himself stated in 2014 the year of its 40th Anniversary of its release, that Young Frankenstein was by far his finest work (although not his funniest) though I beg to differ as do many people who love the film including my own parents. Though how about we take a step back in time and talk about how great a year it was for Mel Brooks in terms of making two of the greatest comedies of all time including Young Frankenstein for which you can watch repeatedly this Halloween season.
Respected medical lecturer Dr. Fredrick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) learns that he has inherited his infamous great grandfather's estate in Transylvania. Arriving at the castle, Dr. Frankenstein soon begins to recreate his grandfather's experiments with the help of servants Igor (Marty Feldman), Inga (Teri Garr) and the fearsome Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman). After he creates his own monster (Peter Boyle), new complications are ensured with the arrival of the Doctor's fiancée (Madeline Kahn).
The way the film came about was during the final few weeks of shooting Blazing Saddles, both Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks we're sharing a cup of coffee and Wilder decided to pitch the idea to Brooks of doing another Frankenstein movie, and Brooks in his own words says "Not another! We've had son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law. We don't need another Frankenstein" and Wilder simplified his pitch and told Brooks "what if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos" and Brooks claims that it sounds funny. Both Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks co-wrote the script together and wrote a good portion of the funny things that makes this film great, thought like most co-writers, the two men even went into blows over the infamous musical sequence, Brooks personally felt it was too silly to have a monster sing and dance, but eventually yielded to Gene's arguments, and what I remember while watching a making off featurette Brooks was basically testing him in if Gene himself truly would fight for this music number as well as wanting to believe it to be right and by the end of the argument each men got what they wanted. The crazy thing while researching the movie was that the principal production shoot started in February 19th, of 1974 and ended around May 3rd of 1974 for which makes a lot of sense consisting that majority of the film was shot on what I presume is sound stage with very little outdoor shooting which deep down is really cool for many reasons both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein came out the same year of 74, and I could imagine while doing post production of Blazing Saddles, both Mel and Gene began writing out the script in 73, and then while they finished Blazing Saddles, financed Young Frankenstein and in February they began production, because the movie itself was released in December of 74. I will state that both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are both Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder's best works together and we can always state that Blazing Saddles will be the greatest comedy spoof but I still have to say as a performance alone Young Frankenstein is Gene Wilder's greatest performance just because he does such a great job playing a character that's a bit crazy but has a lot of anger issues and I could probably talk so much about which scene that he shines in but the problem is he shines in just about everything but even from his slight craziness to realizing he put in a Abby normal brain which is hilarious as well as pure genius in terms of how to be funny and deep down everyone if you want to be a comedic actor Young Frankenstein is a great example of that. Speaking learning to be funny! Ladies, do you want to know how to be funny? watch Madeline Kahn's performance as well as Terri Garr and Cloris Leachman's performances in Young Frankenstein don't watch any of Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer hell even Sarah Silverman just watch this movie that includes three great female performances because both Kahn, Garr and Leachman are also the best part of the movie and I can go to great length on why they're so hilarious in the movie but my last review was close to three pages so to make the sentence short to the point each of them have a great comedic spin when it comes to delivering a great performance and both of them our excellent. Marty Feldman does a great comedic portrayal of Igor with his crazy eyes for which his real-life portraits those are real eyes to all the youngsters who haven't seen Young Frankenstein those are his real eyes but also, he does a great job playing innocent especially when he's being asked about his hump. Peter Boyle, a lot of people don't know, and this is going to the youngsters is Raymond's Dad in Everybody Loves Raymond and he does a fantastic job playing the monster in the movie but though the course of the movie has great reactions especially with scenes with Wilder and Hackman. Speaking of one surprising guest star Gene Hackman plays a small role in the movie as a blind man who all he wants is a friend and has Boyle's character who can't speak and his one scene is just pure greatness that four years into the future he would play Lex Luther in Superman: The Movie, fun fact Hackman and Wilder were tennis buddies and he offered him to play a small role in this Frankenstein spoof. Both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are very different in terms of comedy especially when it comes to the theme as well as the genre moreover Blazing Saddles was rated R and Young Frankenstein is PG. Though what makes this movie fantastic is that they hide a lot of the comedic sexual content without even using any vulgar language and to me I always like that concept of hiding some bad languages and disguising them with different languages throughout the course of the story. Having watched so many so called scary movies and suspense films this month, Young Frankenstein is most certainly a perfect Halloween comedy to watch in the month of October for one reason only when you’re trying to watch something that's a great refresher for when you feeling for something nostalgia or something that has great comedy and I haven't seen Young Frankenstein in a while and now that I purchased it on Blu-Ray, this will most certainly be my go to movie for when I'm tired of watching different scary films like the Shelly Duvall's Sleepy Hollow and Young Frankenstein will probably be my go to movies to watch in the month of October, but really if you want to rank what makes a great movie to watch for the Halloween season it's perfect for its ability to have great comedy as well as some serious acting because if you watch the film carefully Leachman is crying while acting out her reveal and it's just great. So, in celebrating its 50 years of existence I would highly recommend watching Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein and witness Gene Wilder's greatest performance to date through the remanding days of the Halloween season.
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