This episode examines the movie Young Frankenstein, the artistic concepts behind its filming, the cast, character development, and a surprising comparison with Edgar Poe’s double in William Wilson!
Learn about the best horror movie parody ever!
Learn how Mel Brooks made Young Frankenstein to deal with his childhood fears (and make a lot of money!)
What does it mean to have an “enormous schwanzschtucker”?
Where did the filmmakers get the set for the movie?
Learn how Young Frankenstein is like Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson”
What do Aerosmith and Rum D.M.C. have to do with Young Frankenstein?
How and why do Dr. Frankenstein and the creature give parts of their bodies to each other?
This episode examines the movie Young Frankenstein, the artistic concepts behind its filming, the cast, character development, and a surprising comparison with Edgar Poe’s double in William Wilson!
Learn about the best horror movie parody ever!
Learn how Mel Brooks made Young Frankenstein to deal with his childhood fears (and make a lot of money!)
What does it mean to have an “enormous schwanzschtucker”?
Where did the filmmakers get the set for the movie?
Learn how Young Frankenstein is like Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson”
What do Aerosmith and Rum D.M.C. have to do with Young Frankenstein?
How and why do Dr. Frankenstein and the creature give parts of their bodies to each other?
0:00 INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Celebrate Poe, Episode Fifty Seven - Young Frankenstein. And just to let you know - plans are to release this podcast every Monday night at 12:00 Midnight. The opening melody is Edgar Allan Poe’s favorite song - Come Rest in This Bosom. Instead of serious Poe - or even serious Frankenstein - this episode deals with a comedy directed by Mel Brooks, and co-written with Gene Wilder.
Let me start by saying that I am still looking at ways to bring my blood pressure down. It has come down considerably, but is still too high - I’m on two blood pressure medicines that seem to be working, faithfully following a salt-free diet, exercising, deep breathing, and all the stuff that is suggested for those with high blood pressure. But one area that I had not really looked into, and really does work is laughter. Forgetting yourself and watching a very funny movie is one of the most enjoyable ways of dealing with high blood pressure. There are some excellent lists of the top 100 comedies on the internet, and 3 of the top 20 were directed by Mel Brooks. Two of them are The Producers, as well as Blazing Saddles (totally politically incorrect and one of my all time favorites.) And number 13 is the subject of today’s podcast, Young Frankenstein. Reading Poe is not exactly a laugh fest. Oh, almost half of his stories display a droll humor,, but not the kind of belly laugh hysterical kind of humor in a Mel Brooks movie. Not surprisingly, I especially enjoyed watching Mel Brooks’s movies from the library. And I have viewed Young Frankenstein several times.
02:11 Intro to Young Frankenstein
Gene Wilder stars as the title character, and is a descendant of Dr. Victor Frankenstein - so in this case the movie is going back to the book instead of calling him Dr. Henry Frankenstein like the James Whale movie. Mary Shelley is actually listed in the credits and on the promotional poster with the words “based on characters in the novel by Mary W. Shelley.’
Film buffs and scholars both consider Young Frankenstein to be one of the best movie parodies, and the top horror movie parody ever filmed.
The American Movie Channel’s online review referred to the movie as
“the gold standard of cinematic spoofs” and concluded that “even three decades after its initial release, there’s enough rapier wit and repeatable dialogue to redesign its cult of cleverness.”
Blazing Saddles had come out that January, and few people expected Young Frankenstein to be as successful. Surpringly, the movie was a huge box office success. In today’s money, it cost less than 3 million dollars, and made over $86,000,000. Some have said that the movie was responsible for the many horror film parodies that followed. See if any of these parodies ring a bell - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978), Love at First Bite (1979), An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Monster Squad (1987), Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988), and even Shaun of the Dead (2004). Kinda like the movie “Easy Rider” from the sixties - responsible for a lot of imitators, but none as good or successful as the original.
04:23 Background to writing movie
In Young Frankenstein: The Story of the Making of the Film by Mel Brooks with Rebecca Keegan (a source I am going to quote heavily from today)
Mel Brooks wrote that when he was a young boy growing up in New York City, he assumed that, like everyone else go his age group, he be working in the Garment District in Manhattan for the rest of his life - probably in the shipping department - that he had no other choices.
But Brooks says that “at the local movie theater, I could go anywhere—Arabia, the West, Transylvania. We played street games to keep busy in Williamsburg—punchball, baseball, roller hockey—but nothing nourished our dreams like the movies. Those movies gave us lovely worlds to inhabit. When I was a teenager and I saw Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing on shiny, big black-and-white floors, oh wow! You never saw shiny black-and-white floors in Williamsburg. There was just oilcloth and sometimes Jewish newspapers covering them when your mother would wash them. We never had money for anything. But for one thin dime, you got three feature films, a race, some newsreels, some shorts. My mother would send me to the theater with a salmon and tomato sandwich, wrapped in wax paper—’cause it’s a long day, you know?
I was five years old in 1931 when James Whale’s Frankenstein came out. The following summer the movie played at a theater in Williamsburg and my older brother, Bernie, took me to see it. My father had died of tuberculosis when he was only thirty-four and I was two. And there was Mama, thirty years old, with four little boys. Mama had to clean. She wanted me out.
Bernie said, “I’m going to see Frankenstein, maybe he will get scared.” My mother said, “I don’t care! Take him.” So Bernie took me, and that movie scared the hell out of me. I was really terrified. It was a big mistake. It was the scariest thing I saw in my life. That was a hot summer in Brooklyn, and in our two-bedroom apartment, I slept right by the fire escape. I said to my mother, “Mom, please close the window.” She said, “It’s a hundred degrees in here, I can’t close the window. What’s the matter?” I said, “If you leave the window open, Frankenstein will come and eat me.” (We called the monster Frankenstein because we didn’t know the difference.)
Now imagine I am a Jewish mother.
My mother said, “OK, let’s talk about this. First of all, the monster lives in Romania, in Transylvania. Romania is not near the ocean. So he’s going to have to get to Odessa. He’s going to have go a long way to get to a boat. Then he has to have money to pay for his passage. He may not have any money if he is just a monster. He may not have pockets. Let’s say he makes his way to Odessa and he gets a boat to America. The boat may go to Miami. It may go to Baltimore. It may not go to New York. If it goes to New York and he gets off there, he doesn’t know the subway system. If he finds the BMT (what we called the subway back then) and he gets to Brooklyn, he doesn’t know our street. Let’s say he does find our street. But remember, the people on the first floor have their window open. He is not going to climb way up. If he’s hungry, he is going to eat who’s ever there on the first floor.”
“And you know, Mom made sense. So I said, “OK, leave the window open.” But it haunted me. Actually, it haunted me for years. I mean, it was the scariest thing. I was always worried. Then to add insult to injury, this guy James Whale kept making more Frankenstein movies.
More than forty years later, when I was finally a little less scared, Whale’s movies would inspire me and my friend and collaborator Gene Wilder to make Young Frankenstein.”
Now stay with me on this one -
Freud noted, for example, how “children create games around the very things they most fear as a way of subduing those fears and gaining control.” In other words, to laugh at something that once was frightening loosens its psychological grip on us. Horror movies that once acted as a barometer to measure a particular era’s fears can become harmless figures of fun. So you might have a spoof that makes fun of a horror film, but at the same time also pays homage to and expresses a continuing fascination with that horror movie. Mel Brooks verifies Freud’s observation as he recounts his frightened reaction upon first seeing Whale’s Frankenstein as a young boy growing up in Brooklyn: “It terrified me and stayed with me. I think I made a comedy out of it, in a strange way, to exorcise it from my soul so I wouldn’t worry about Frankenstein climbing up the fire escape and coming into my bedroom.”
So it could be argued that the movie was not onely a way of making money, but a result of Mel Brook’s dealing with his childhood fears. Were
Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories also a result of his childhood fears, besides becoming a popular genre?
10:14 Artistic concepts
Mel Brooks writes that one of the artistic concepts central to Young Frankenstein was that it be in black and white to salute the original Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Brooks writes, “So the producer of the movie set up a meeting at Columbia Pictures. The meeting was fine. They loved the script. They loved the idea. They wanted to make it. We love you, you love us, blah blah blah. On the way out, I shouted, “Oh, by the way, we’re going to make it in black and white.” Then we shut the door.
Then a thundering herd followed us down the hall from the meeting room. They were screaming, “No, no, wait, come back! No black and white!”
Brooks was adamant that the movie be in black and white, and the studios were just as adamant that the movie be in color.
“The guys at Columbia said, “OK, here’s a compromise: Shoot it in color, and “we’ll diffuse it and take the color out.” I passed on that because they’ll trick you and release it in color anyway. I said no, “There’s a stock called Agfa. It’s a German black-and-white film. It’s true, rich, thick black and white. The Columbia guys said, “Well, we’ll let you know.”
Michael Gruskoff already had his wheels turning. He had a friend, somebody I’d never met, called Alan Ladd Jr., who had just taken over at 20th Century Fox. Right away we hit it off. Laddie had a lot of faith in me. He said use stage five at Fox; it’s enormous, it’s gorgeous, and it’s yours. He said make the movie in black and white, and here’s some extra money. He initially gave us $2.4 million. And that was a lot of money then.”
Mel Brooks writes that he felt good about the script, but a part of him still worried about the lack of color. He later said “I did worry about the black and white. A lot of theater owners wouldn’t take a movie unless it was in color. The truth is I was worried about it, but I didn’t tell them that. And we made the deal.”
Mel Brooks was a firm believer in James Whale’s genius. Brooks wrote:
“James Whale’s talent was in how he told the Frankenstein story visually. Gene Wilder (co-writer and one of his stars) and I watched Whale’s movies together multiple times. We saw how the guy took his time. Whale wanted everything to be deep, dark, somber. He had worked in the theater before he started in film, which is where he met Colin Clive, the actor who plays the insane Dr. Frankenstein. When Whale’s Frankenstein came out, it was a smash hit, and catapulted Boris Karloff, who played the monster, into stardom. Whale kind of got pigeonholed as a horror director, and he would go on to direct The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, and, of course, Bride of Frankenstein, which we reference liberally. Whale knew exactly how to scare the heck out of you, but he was also a great artist who was not appreciated for those talents as much as he should have been.”
13:38 Gene Wilder
The cast consisted of: Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Fronkensteen, the grandson of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Mel Brooks has written that Gene Wilder was able to intuit any directions - he knew exactly what worked, and had incredible timing. In the commentary to the DVD, Mel Brooks points out the many times that the cast almost broke up in hysterics, and you can see their almost pained expressions as they try to stay in character and keep from laughing. This was especially true of Gene Wilder.
14:20 Peter Boyle
Peter Boyle played the creature. He was able to play the role as a scary and miserable monster, as well as a sweet child. His makeup was probably more bearable than the makeup that Boris Karloff used in the 1930’s, but it still took about as much time to apply and then take off at the end of the day.
14:43 Mary Feldman
Marty Feldman played Igor. When Dr. Frankenstein introduce himself as Fronkensteen, Igor introduced himself as EYE gore. Igor wants to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and live up to the legacy of the hunchbacks who have served the Frankenstein family. Unfortunately, his desire to serve his new master is not always matched by a sufficient amount of practical know-how.
Feldman said that his costume in the movie consisted of basic black tights and a leotard with a hump back. It also had knobs jutting out on his skinny knees and calves. The hump on his back was the wardrobe cushion usually used to make actresses look pregnant.
One of the funniest lines in the movie was when Gene Wilder references EYE gore’s hump, and EYE gore looks at Gene Wilder, and says “What hump?”
15:44 Teri Garr
The buxom but none-too-bright Inga was played by Teri Garr. Garr had been a dancer on television and in several Elvis Presley movies. She played Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory assistant and later - his love interest. Teri Garr was hilarious - sort of a combination of innocence and sexiness. My favorite line of hers was when Dr. Frankenstein said that he had to make all the parts of the creature’s body larger so that they could be accessed - and Teri Garr eyes grow wider and she innocently says in a German accent, Woof! He could have an enormous schwanzschtucker.
16:31 Madeline Khan
Madeline Khan plays Elizabeth, Dr. Frankenstein’s finance. She is very glamorous and plays Elizabeth as a slightly ditzy socialite. Mel Brooks said that “When we were writing Young Frankenstein I knew I wanted her.
Gene and I thought, why doesn’t Dr. Frankenstein have a fiancée who couldn’t care less about the reanimation of dead tissue but cares a lot about earrings? I talked to Madeline about it and she said, “I know the character.”
And in Mel Brook’s book about the making of Young Frankenstein,
Madeline Khan is quoted as having said, “Mel let me craft my characters myself. After I did that, and after great appreciation of the subtleties and the nuances… he then would direct his point of view onto my performance and broaden it so it became part of his movie. The choice of singing “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life” was my idea. It was Mel’s idea that the character burst into song at that point, which was a brilliant idea. The song Mel originally had in the script was the beginning of “Cheek to Cheek,” which goes, “Heaven, I’m in Heaven.” As I worked on the scene alone, I couldn’t figure out how to make it believable. As I worked on it, I realized I wished there was a song that would start on an “ah” or an “oh,” so I could feel as though I were going to scream but instead of screaming I found that I was singing. “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life!” That’s perfect! The words are perfect, it is so perfect. Gathering my courage together, I managed to ask Mel if we couldn’t try that song in that moment and he said, “Well, OK, we can try it.”
If you don’t understand what moment I am talking about, well I suggest that you see the movie. It comes near the end of the movie, and is hilarious.
18:29 Gene Hackman
And last, but certainly not least - Gene Hackman, who was a major star at the time. He plays the blind man in the hut whom the creature visits. Gene Hackman is totally unrecognizable in the role. His most famous bit is pouring soup into the creature’s lap.
18:56 Set
“In 1974, Kenneth Strickfaden, who designed most of the lab equipment in the movie told the Los Angeles Times, “Most of [the laboratory pieces used in Young Frankenstein] are remnants of the original equipment and some are copies. Some have been altered and quite a few of them burned up in the intervening years.” The movie used as much of the original Frankenstein laboratory as we could, with its zaps of electricity, high-voltage special effects, and elevator platform to intercept lightning bolts.” According to Mel Brooks, the man who owned the equipment used in the James Whale versions of Frankenstein only asked for a small portion of what it was worth to rent the lab, but Brooks sent him much larger check as payment.
19:44 Character development
I especially like Mel Brook’s conception of Dr. FronkenSTEEN in the movie.
Frankenstein is not like the dangerous, egotistical researcher, who might be capable of anything.
Oh, the doctor is still intense in Young Frankenstein - Gene Wilder sweats a great deal and often seems to have a great deal of pent up emotion. But this doctor is a far more supportive and a benevolent figure. He even risks his life to save his Creature.
During the first part of the movie, Frederick acts as though he is trying to completely escape what he feels is a shameful ancestry. He pronounces his name as “Fron-ken- steen” - like a descendant of the Smith family who pronounces his name as Smythe. The doctor initially does not want to acknowledge his relation to the infamous Frankenstein name. He denies any connection emotionally with “his work was a kook” or intellectually ”his work was doo-doo,” In Young Frankenstein, the doctor is a a compassionate and brilliant scientist. There seems to be more emphasis on the prejudiced and superstitious mob bent on destroying someone because they cannot understand him. In that sense, the villagers and police are more like Mary Shelley’s characters than those of James Whale - remember that Whale did show the immediate non-acceptance towards someone perceived as different in ,any of the movies he directed. In Young Frankenstein, both Dr. Frankenstein and his creation become outsiders who have more in common with each other than with those who are afraid of them. And all this seems to happen so subtly that it creeps up on you.
21:41 Poe’s William Wilson and “the double”
One way of looking at Young Frankenstein is to compare it to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story - William Wilson written in 1839. William Wilson is not one of Poe’s most famous stories, but tells a great deal about the human mind, Poe’s formative years in school near London, and the idea of the doppelgänger - or double of a person. Another example of a doppelgänger in literature is the lead Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - written almost twenty years after Poe died.
We will definitely go into Poe’s story in far more detail in the future, but I am introducing his story of a double now because of its similarity - and this is just my opinion - to Young Frankenstein. You see, some critics have viewed the creature as Dr. Frankenstein ’s double . Poe’s fictional William Wilson is about a man who meets an individual who also calls himself William Wilson, and like Poe, attends school in a “musty village of England.” Throughout Poe’s story, both William Wilsons keep meeting, and they become like two sides of the same person.
Some readers of Mary Shelley’s novel, confused the name of Dr. Frankenstein with his creation - and some of the earlier play adaptation presented the characters as two sides of the same coin. And matters weren’t helped, when the 1931 movie version was released, and much of the audience thought that the creature was Frankenstein. Even if they know differently, when you mention the word Frankenstein, most people think of the 9-foot monster, NOT the doctor. So the merging of the two personalities has always been a subtle concept in later versions of Frankenstein.
One of the best scenes in the movie is when Dr. Frankenstein says:
From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, "I am man.", our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gauntlet of science into the frightful face of death itself. Tonight, we shall ascend into the heavens. We shall mock the earthquake. We shall command the thunders, and penetrate into the very womb of nature - herself.
And there is one scene in the movie, where Igor says to Dr. Frankenstein to Walk This Way - a line that was almost cut out of the movie. Later in the 70s, Aerosmith used this line as the title for their song “Walk This Way.” from the album “Toys in the Attic.” Rum DMC also covered “Walk This Way” in their album Raising Hell.
But getting back to Young Frankenstein -
The movie Young Frankenstein seemed to emphasize the connection between Doctor and the creature. The doctor appears to identify with his creation - especially in the scene where he enters the cellar and the creature is chained to the wall. The doctor says, “love is the only thing that can save this poor Creature” and risks his life “to convince him that he is loved.” Some critics have said that the doctor acts almost like a kind father-figure by first confronting the creature with “Hello, handsome.” You’re a good looking fellow, do you know that.” “People laugh at you. People hate you. But why do they hate you?” he asks and then quickly answers: “Because they are jealous. Look at that boyish face. Look at that sweet smile,” Next, he emphasizes the Creature’s positive qualities. In other words, he acts like a good father trying to improve his child’s self esteem.
“Do you want to talk about physical strength? Do you want to talk about sheer muscle? Do you want to talk about the Olympian ideal?” he proclaims, adding grandly, “You are a god.” Finally, it almost seems that Dr. Frankenstein is trying to improve the Creature’s self- worth and inherent morality with “You are not evil. You are good.”
The creature then moans aloud and bursts into tears, and Dr. Frankenstein responds as though he were a proud parent. He says, “This is a nice boy. This is a good boy. [He then caresses the Monster and rocks him tenderly back and forth.] This is a mother’s angel. And I want the world to know, once and for all and without any shame, that we love him.”
The Creature sobs as Frankenstein cradles him in his arms and kisses him gently on the head. Finally, he turns to their future together, how he will become a doting father, and simultaneously share his triumph with his offspring: “I’m going to teach you how to walk, how to speak, how to move, how to think. Together, you and I are going to make the greatest single contribution to science since the creation of fire!” And when Dr. Frankenstein accepts the creature, he pronounces his name as Frankenstein - not Fronkensteen - for the first time - in other words, he accepts his family heritage
But what does this have to do with Poe’s William Wilson story?
Well, I believe there are points in both stories when the main character realizes the humanity of another person that has become a part of his life. And both William Wilson and Doctor Frankenstein realize they have a real connection to that person, although the acceptance is far darker in William Wilson.
While the development of the double is far more basic in Poe’s story and doesn’t really end happily, in Young Frankenstein, the doctor and the creature in Young Frankenstein exchange more than just words, and sacrifices part of himself for the good of the other. Frankenstein donates some of his brain to rescue his creation - this allows the creature to speak rationally and gain the respect of the villagers. The creature actually articulates his feelings,
“For as long as I can remember, people have hated me. They looked at my face and my body and they ran away in horror. In my loneliness, I decided if I could not inspire love, which is my deepest hope, I would instead cause fear. I live because this poor, half-crazed genius has given me life. He alone held an image of me as something beautiful. And then, when it would have been easy enough to stay out of danger, he used his own body as a guinea pig to give me a calmer brain.” Brooks comments: “This creator loves his creature so much that he risks his sanity and his life to help his brainchild survive.” In a very real sense - I know this is a comedy with elements of fantasy - the two men become part of each other.
29:33 Summary
So the genius of Young Frankenstein is not just that the movie is a hilarious but respectful parody of the Frankenstein movies from the 1930’s . It is not just that the movie one of the greatest comedies ever filmed. In essence, Young Frankenstein transforms the heartless and calculating researcher from earlier versions of Frankenstein into a devoted parent who is excited by his offspring’s talent and intelligence.
And isn’t that ideally the role of any parent - to raise a child who is taught by adults to become not only a younger double influenced by them, but someone who grows into a separate, thinking, unique human being.
And being a classic comedy - while it deals with very serious issues in a hilarious way - Young Frankenstein has an ending that is funny, risqué, and shows that the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously.
You see, as a result of the exchange between the doctor and creature, the doctor gains not only emotionally but even becomes an improved lover.The creature has become a rational being with an improved brain - remember this is science fiction - and has donated part of his well-endowed sexual anatomy to his creator. Rather than remaining bitter antagonists, therefore, the maker and creation are now complete doubles - even to the point of sharing parts of each other. One might say they have established an emotional, physical, and intellectual union that benefits them both.
31:24 Sources and Outro
The next episode of Celebrate Poe should be the last episode of the Frankenstein series - a series that starting with this podcast’s examination of Mary Shelley’s novel through the Universal movies, and up to the relatively recent Young Frankenstein. The next episode in this podcast deals with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, as well as 2 works by Poe - The House of Usher, and Dreamland.
Sources for this episode include Young Frankenstein: The Story of the Making of the Film by Mel Brooks with Rebecca Keegan, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the DVD Commentary to Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks, and Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives.
Why not visit my podcast web site at celebratepoe.buzzsprout.com - click on the episode you want to learn more about to see its show notes and a transcript.
Join me for a very special episode of Celebrate Poe as this podcast examines The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Dreamland.
Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.