Young Frankenstein (1974)

I've seen this many, many times, going back into my childhood. Mel Brooks was big in our house and we watched his movies often. We lived outside of the city limits, so cable TV wasn't an option for us. Once our parents divorced, my dad moved in town and would record movies and send them home with us on weekends. We were supposed to watch the movies and bring them back next week so he could record more for us. Tapes with Mel Brooks films never got returned, though. We watched them all the time, running them into the ground. It wouldn't surprise me if one of my brothers was still holding onto a couple of those tapes today.

Here's what I took away from it this time: Gene Wilder is brilliant. He's usually pretty good in everything, but he's best when he goes manic and there's a lot of "manic" in this movie. The intensity in his voice and expression on his face in those scenes always elicit a smile from me. Gene is a great actor, period. I'll be sad when he eventually dies. Marty Feldman steals the scene every time he's on screen. I get the feeling he drifted from the script more often than he stuck to it. Mugging for the camera and breaking the fourth wall usually ruins things for me, but somehow it works when he does it. Normal Fell's Stanley Roper is the only other instance I can think of in which mugging doesn't bother me. Peter Boyle has the funniest scenes in the movie, even without dialogue. The scene with the blind man (with an almost unrecognizable Gene Hackman) is one of my favorites because of Boyle's great performance. Lastly, I've found that my childhood crush on Teri Garr has carried over into adulthood.

This was my first time viewing it on Blu-Ray. I'm still not sold on this whole Blu-Ray business. Most of the time I can't see a difference in picture from DVD. I suppose a black and white movie from 1974 made to look like it was shot in the 30s isn't the best film to deliver the full Blu-Ray experience, though. The picture was sharp and the audio was fine, but it's been a while since I've watched my DVD copy to make a comparison. From memory, it looked about the same. Other than director commentary, there are no special features, but that could be because this is part of a larger set and not a solo disc. 

I realize this is another one of those cop out reviews where I don't talk about the plot at all, but I assume everyone has seen it at this point. It's basically "Frankenstein" with a little bit of "King Kong" thrown in the mix. This is among Mel Brooks' best films, but credit must be given to Wilder who wrote most of the script, as I understand it. Solid stuff all around with plenty of laughs to be had. As funny and as sexy as a PG rated movie can be.

4/5