The young doctor Frederick Frankenstein, an American neurosurgeon, tries to escape the stigma bequeathed by his grandfather, who created years ago a horrible creature. Leaving his girlfriend (Madeline Khan) in the United States, Frederick travels to Europe where he will meet his new male bug-eyed servant, Igor (Marty Feldman) and female assistant Inga, (Teri Garr). When he inherits Frankenstein’s castle and discovers a strange scientific manual that explains step by step how to bring a dead body back to life, he begins to create his own monster.  One of the most successful  comedies of parody expert Mel Brooks, shaking here some of the moments and environments of films made by the Universal in the 30s on the figure of Frankenstein, literary character created by Mary Shelley is ‘Young Frankenstein’.

It was during the filming of Hot Saddles ’(‘ Blazzing Saddles ’, 1974) – an entertaining parody of the marvelous film genre par excellence – when actor Gene Wilder put Brooks in the head that he had to make a film about Frankenstein. Both got down to work with a script, the best that has come out of their minds, a libretto in which it is combined with ingenuity, and humor, characteristic elements of the horror movies of the Universal of the 30s. The fabulous  title already gives an idea of that homage, sense and affection, to a cinema that was in the antipodes of comedy. An elegant black and white — formal decision that was rejected by Columbia but accepted with open arms by Fox — and John Morris’s incredible soundtrack, with that violin lament, which will be the film’s leitmotiv.

One of the things that the director liked the most was the fact that the story is starring the grandson of the mythical baron, since the son had already appeared in one of the sequels of the James Whale film. A grandson who also differs in the rest of the central characters of the universe in that he does not want to know anything about his ancestor’s experiments, much less that they relate to him. Hence the joke with his last name is one of the most effective of the tape. A variant of the surname that plays in a prodigious way with the personality of the central character – Gene Wilder, a conscientious scientist who first does not believe in resurrecting the dead. It is curious that Brooks’ best film is precisely one of those who does not appear as an actor – he was convinced by Wilder and this led to him only focusing on his libretto and directing work. Brooks also lets his actors free themselves, in a way, without ever falling into histrionics, although handling with tact the exaggeration that every crazy comedy must have. In this regard, Gene Wilder, with his mood swings, and some very dedicated Cloris Leachman and Madeline Khan, with his excesses to his fiance, and his final sexual liberation at the hands of the creature.

However, if ‘The Young Frankesntein’ is remembered in his acting facet, it is without a doubt what Marty Feldman and Gene Hackman, who do not get accredited at the beginning, look especially like. The first for his endearing and delirious character Igor – in some classic film played by Bela Lugosi; and here is another link with the prince of darkness when addressing the baron as “master” – and with which I think some of the best gags of the film are poured: the change of place of the hump, or how quickly the one that appears next to Frankensten when he calls out loud. Gene Hackman had to enjoy his own – until he improvised some dialogue phrase – with one of the most remembered episodes in the history of the creature, the one in which he meets a blind man who welcomes him in his home. The beauty of the metaphor, it is not necessary to see to find the goodness, is burst by the most basic detail of this encounter, the blindness of man. This gives rise to what I believe is the most hilarious moment of the film, and in which it goes beyond showing the creature, hungry for love, not wanting to know anything about man.  Peter Boyle composes an excellent creature, of course a tribute to Boris Karloff of the 30s, to whom a total declaration of intent is also made using part of the same sets that were once used for the laboratory. In this way the most classic terror can give way to the healthiest laugh in the same place where the creature is born. Brooks was never as inspired as in this movie, at the service of the viewer, for whom the seventh art was created.

“The Young Frankenstein” combines characters and circumstances from four of those films “Doctor Frankenstein” (James Whale, 1931), “The Bride of Frankenstein” (James Whale, 1935), “The Shadow of Frankenstein” (Rowland V. Lee, 1939) and “The Ghost of Frankenstein” (Erle v. Kenton, 1941). It was unusual in the seventies to propose a black and white production, which is why the “Columbia” was not receptive to the proposal, but Brooks still remained firm in his decision. The discovery that Kenneth Strickfaden, the creator of the laboratory equipment used in “Doctor Frankenstein” , still lived and kept that material in his basement, so he could reuse it. In the montage Brooks resorts to transitional effects characteristic of those past productions such as the iris closure, the black castings or the curtains (Sometimes, in relation to an ingenious use of ellipses: The “United States” trip to Transylvania : A spiral curtain separates the same frame into two trains, with different passengers, who speak different languages, which already places us in another continent).

The work is revealed as a fiery apology and a joyful homage of sex, that “Sweet mystery of life” that Elizabeth will sing as an epiphany, as in an orgasmic operatic trance, when she is deflowered by the creature, One of the most iconic sequences of “Doctor Frankenstein” (Frankenstein, James Whale, 1931) was the death of the girl, which the creature threw into the water when it ran out of flowers to throw. A metaphor of defloration (but also of awkwardness or inability with feelings and desires). After all, the baron is scheduled to marry Elizabeth, who is upset that he prefers to lock himself in his tower with his experiments. Significantly, before the ceremony the creature will break into the room where Elizabeth is located. After the baron finds Elizabeth passed out in bed, the following sequence shows how the father enters the town with the body of the girl in his arms.

The sexual and emotional fears, the ghost or monster of impotence, vertebrated the Baron-creature duality, which seeks to be loved, but what gives fear is and causes rejection, more developed aspect in “The Bride of Frankenstein”. The creature, unlike in Mary Shelley’s novel, is rather an elementary organism, defined not by the intellectual but by physical power, which, in contrast, could establish that condition of reflection of fears or Baron’s virile insecurities.

Sometimes the parody seeks the inversion of the referential sequence, and more if it is iconic like for example when the creature runs out of flowers next to the girl, she looks at the camera, a fourth wall rupture that seeks the complicity of the cinephile who knows what in the referenced work happened later; but here the ellipsis derives otherwise: her parents find the girl in her bed. That frustration of expectations or reversal of the forecasts also occurs in the encounter with the blind man, a sequence that, in “The Bride of Frankenstein” became, by its lyrical treatment, in emblem of the helplessness of the creature (The angle that showed him not as a monster but as a vulnerable creature, the boy who needed guidance in a dark world of blind minds because of his suspicion). But in this case, the encounter is the opposite, so much so that the creature is the one that runs away in terror, after it has been scalded, because the blind man does not succeed in spilling the contents of the saucepan on the plate.

After all, this connects with the substance of the novel, in which the creature, with capacity for reflection and expressive articulation, was confronted with its condition of anomaly in a world bounded by limited minds in limited scenarios. They got rejected for their appearance and for what it represented, that is, what they did not fit or accept in their mental restrictions). That expressive domain, in the novel, was not enough for social integration, but rather accentuated his exiled condition. On the other hand, in “The young Frankenstein” becomes the access key to integration. Although, in this case, the integration will imply alienation in those limited scenarios inhabited by limited minds. The conclusion readjusts what was not resolved, in relation to the Baron-creature-Elizabeth trio, for the excision or internal sexual and emotional blockade suffered by the Baron, in “Doctor Frankenstein”. Both, the creature and Elizabeth, conclude together, as a couple, although the expression of the creature in bed, while reading the newspaper, and listening to Elizabeth’s lascivious chatter.