Young Frankenstein

Young Frankensteinⁱ is a delightful B movie in the line of The Raven (the one where Jack Nicholson got his start). The dialogue is excellent - it rejects the conventions of the art to very much artistic benefit.ⁱⁱ The characters are absolutely fabulous - I know of no better imp than Igor nor could one be easily imagined. I know of no better soubrette than Inga, nor could one ever exist - I'd seriously propose young women aspiring to not grow up idiots spend some serious time studying Inga. The humour's something else, do you have any idea how rarely I laugh at a movie ? Yet the "walk this way" gag had me in stitches.

This is a product, like any B movie, and the corners show. But it's a product of the old school, with honest effort and actual workmanship put in there, and it also shows. In this age of computer generated goop, that's not any good but most definitely is very smooth and shiny, both the qualities and the defects of old stuff seem to transmute into valuable characteristics. I certainly recomend this film above anything that came out last year, and if Justice hadn't long fled the sinking ship Young Frankenstein would win the Oscars in pretty much all fields but cinematography (which I think no longer exists anyway ?).

Think about it, the 2nd rate products of the 70s beat out of the field anything the 2010s could come up with. Such is the place and such are the times.

Ps. Can you spot the Gene Hackman ?

1. 1975, by Mel Brooks, with Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr [↩]
2. Note that in some variants good bits are cut off - for instance as the cart arrives to the castle door, which displays some humongously disproportionate old iron knockers, the hero's holding the heroine with her tits in his face, and observes something about the knockers. For which compliment she graciously thanks him. [↩]