Young Frankenstein Movie Review - Starring Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle

By David Terr

"Young Frankenstein" is one of my favorite Mel Brooks films. It's classic comedy which pokes fun at old horror films, Frankenstein in particular. Peter Boyle is fantastic as Frankenstein's monster, as is Gene Wilder as Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced fronk-en-steen), Victor's grandson.

At the beginning of the film, Victor Frankenstein's coffin opens up to reveal his will, which needs to be pried out of his skeletal hands. His grandson Frederick (Wilder) is a medical professor at an American university. One day after class he is told to come to Transylvania to receive his grandfather's will.

Frankenstein makes the journey, arriving in Transylvania by train, where he meets Igor (pronounced eye-gor), Egor's grandson. Like his grandfather, Igor yields a hump on his back, but he is unaware of it. Igor takes Frankenstein to his grandfather's castle along with a comely young woman named Inga. Once they arrive, they're greeted by Frau Blucher, who turns out to be Victor's old flame.

Frau Blucher lures Frankenstein and Inga into Victor's laboratory, where Frankenstein learns of his grandfather's work and becomes convinced that he can duplicate his experiment. He and Igor dig up a large corpse from the graveyard and take it back to the laboratory. They intend to implant the body with the brain of a genius, but Igor accidentally drops the brain and uses an abnormal brain instead. Shortly after completing the experiment, they learn that their creation is alive but that he's been given an abnormal brain, resulting in dangerous behavior, so they keep him tied down.

Shortly thereafter, they find Frau Blucher in the laboratory setting the monster free. They beg her not to, but she plays her violin, which soothes the monster. At last she tells them that Victor was her boyfriend. The monster goes crazy and runs out of the lab before they can catch him.

Loose in Transylvania, the monster wanders into a house with a small girl playing. The parents have tried to protect her from the monster, but they forget to take her to bed. She ends up in bed in any case after the monster sits on a seesaw and she gets flung into her bedroom.

Next the monster visits the home of a blind man, who inadvertently torments him by pouring hot soup on his lap, smashing his glass, and finally lighting his thumb on fire. The monster runs out screaming. Frankenstein, Igor, and Inga manage to capture him.

With the monster now locked up, Frankenstein decides to try to reason with him and teach him that he's loved. He succeeds, and eventually teaches the monster to talk and sing (very crudely) as well as dance. He has the monster perform to a sold-out audience. The show goes well until a candle accidentally falls and starts a small fire, making the monster go crazy. The monster tries to run out of the theater but gets captured by the authorities.

The constable tries to torment the monster and he escapes again. Meanwhile, Frankenstein gets a visit from his fiancee Elizabeth. The monster finds her and seduces her and she falls in love with him. Frankenstein has worked out a treatment for the monster, which involves giving the monster part of Frankenstein's brain in exchange for something else. The treatment works and the monster becomes a normal human being, who marries Elizabeth. Frankenstein marries Inga, who soon learns what he's obtained from the monster!

Young Frankenstein - Dave's Top Movies

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