8/10
This is one of Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder's best ; plenty of humor , entertainment and amusement
16 December 2013
Dr. Frankenstein's (Gene Wilder has stated that this is his favorite of all the films he's made) grandson, after years of living down the family reputation, inherits granddad's castle and repeats the experiments carried out many years ago . He says goodbye his pretty girlfriend Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn) and travels Transylvania . In the castle he finds a funny hunchback called Igor (Marty Feldman), a gorgeous lab assistant (Teri Garr) named Inga and the old housekeeper, Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman) . Later on , he successfully reanimates a body (Peter Boyle) which soon flees and creates wreak havoc .

Hilarious Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder comedy filled with horror satire , amusing events , nice settings and lots of laughters . This spoof of the old Universal terror movies is fun from start to finish . The original cut of the movie was almost twice as long as the final cut, and it was considered by all involved to be an abysmal failure , it was only after a marathon cutting session that they produced the final cut of the film, which both Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks considered to be far superior to the original product ; at one point they noted that for every joke that worked, there were three that fell flat , so they went in and trimmed all the jokes that didn't work. Enjoyable support cast such as Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth , Cloris Leachman as Frau Blücher , Kenneth Mars as Inspector Kemp and brief acting by John Carradine , Leon Askin played a lawyer but was cut out , final film of Oscar Beregi Jr and of Richard Haydn , but most of his role was deleted from the final print . And uncredited Gene Hackman as the Blind Man, in fact parting line "I was gonna make espresso" was not in the script, but was ad-libbed by the same Gene Hackman during shooting .

When Mel Brooks found that Ken Strickfaden, who had made the elaborate electrical machinery for the lab sequences in the Universal Frankenstein films, was still alive in the Los Angeles area. He visited Strickfaden and found that Strickfaden had saved all the equipment and had it stored in his garage. Brooks made a deal to rent the equipment for his film and gave Strickfaden the screen credit he'd deserved, but hadn't gotten, for the original films. Evocative as well as luxurious cinematography in white and black by magnificent director of photography Gerald Hirschfeld . Lively and agreeable musical score by John Morris , Mel Brooks's usual .

Excellent makeup by artist Ed Butterworth, being helped by the classic William Tuttle as makeup creator , as just like in the original Frankenstein (1931), greenish face makeup was used on the monster to make his features more prominent . Perfect sets and impressive production design , in fact he electrical apparatus used in the movie was basically the same as the equipment used Frankenstein (1931) , including many of the same props and lab equipment . The motion picture was stunningly directed by Mel Brooks ((Blazing saddles , High anxiety , Twelve chairs , The producers , Spaceballs , History of the world).

It was voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006 and at the 1975 Golden Globe Awards, Cloris Leachman was nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy/Musical, while Madeline Kahn was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for their work in this movie.
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