Frankenstein vs. Young Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1931) & Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

An angry mob bearing torches and pitchforks, mad scientists and man-made monsters are horror and science fiction cliches that are so ingrained in the popular imagination that it is easy to take for granted where they originated. Mary Shelley’s richly horrifying tale of a young scientist driven by ambition and pride to create life from inanimate matter has been the source of countless adaptations and appropriations since its publication in 1818. But none so powerful as the 1931 film version of Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein. Directed by James Whale, both films popularized a variety of horror film tropes, from the archaic castles caught in a perpetual thunder storm to the shadowy lighting scheme.

Viewing these films in retrospect, it isn’t surprising that modern audiences recognize the characters, images and the pacing. The film might appear predictable to a contemporary viewer, who has seen countless derivations of the Frankenstein-narrative. Indeed the film opens on the passionate Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) experimenting with the reanimation of dead matter, an obsession that interferes with his upcoming nuptials. His success at bringing a creature to life and his subsequent elation are short-lived once the creature breaks out of his lair and goes on a rampage, killing several people. A final showdown pits creature against creator in a struggle that culminates on a burning windmill.

The plot and set pieces may seem familiar, but the 1931 Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel delve deeper into the subtleties of Shelley’s tale and extract the tragic resonances of the creature’s life. Brought into a deeply unethical scientific world, with scientists all vying for God-like status, the creature experiences mostly misery at the hands of men from the moment of his birth. Boris Karloff, as the supposedly menacing monster, is remarkably emotive under layers of makeup, and conveys the creature’s brief moments of unfettered joy, including when he reaches his hands skyward trying to feel the sun, with a touching, unexpected grace.

Still courtesy of wikicommons

Bride of Frankenstein is one of those rare sequels that demands to be viewed side by side with the original, which is why come Halloween, there is no better double feature than Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Of all Mel Brooks’ hilarious spoofs, none come closer to his own definition of satire, “a salute…to the original movie, but move it two inches to the right or the left” than Young Frankenstein. Brought to life in the same gorgeous black and white color palette as the original, with painstaking attention paid to set design, especially the mad Doctor’s laboratory, Brooks and his team even tracked down the original lab equipment used in the 1931 film. Young Frankenstein lovingly embraces its film parent, while injecting its own zany tangents.

The brainchild of star Gene Wilder and director Mel Brooks (in the only one of his film’s that he plays no onscreen role), Young Frankenstein is set several generations down the Frankenstein family tree, with Wilder playing the original doctor’s grandson, who shuns his ancestor’s mad scientist inclinations. Predictably, once he returns to the site of the original crime, he soon falls prey to the same compulsions and sets about molding his own clay man with the help of his trusty sidekicks, Igor the hunchback and Inga the bombshell. The versimilitudinous visual quality of this film to the original allows Wilder and Brooks to narrow in on scenes, like the infamous creation scene, and the creature’s interaction with a little girl and an old blind man, in order to find the humor with near surgical precision.

Young Frankenstein is probably most famous for the hilarious performances from Wilder as the Doctor, Marty Feldman as Igor, Peter Boyle as the Monster, Madeline Kahn as the Fiance, Teri Garr as Inga and Cloris Leachman as Frau Blücher (naaaaaaaayyy!), all of them at the peak of their outrageous comedic personas. This film is simply one of the funniest, most quotable and, deservedly, most beloved comedy films of all time.