“It’s Alive!”: Revisiting 'Young Frankenstein' for Halloween

This Halloween, our Cinema Club dimmed the lights and dialed up the laughter with Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein (1974) — the rare comedy as lovingly crafted as the classics it lampoons. Shot in luminous black and white, the film bridges two traditions — horror and farce — and reminds us that parody, when done right, is an act of affection. Brooks and his co-writer and star Gene Wilder clearly adore the Gothic world of James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), borrowing everything from the jagged laboratory machinery to the chiaroscuro lighting and ornate sets that look as though they’ve been lifted straight from Universal’s vaults.

Brooks even secured some of the original lab equipment designed by Kenneth Strickfaden for Whale’s film, giving his spoof an authenticity most comedies never attempt.

Just as vital to that authenticity is the film’s sweeping score by John Morris, Brooks’s longtime musical collaborator. Morris composed for all of Brooks’s classic films — from The Producers to Robin Hood: Men in Tights — but his Young Frankenstein score stands apart for its haunting sincerity. The solo violin theme, wistful and romantic, wouldn’t be out of place in a genuine 1930s Gothic melodrama. 

Brooks understood that to make the comedy work, the music had to take the world seriously. Morris’s lush orchestration grounds the absurdity, allowing the jokes to emerge organically from characters who believe utterly in their own doomed grandeur.

At its heart, Young Frankenstein is a meticulous reconstruction of those early horror films — and then a gleeful deconstruction. The framing, the tracking shots and even the acting styles mimic 1930s melodrama before Brooks mischievously pulls the rug out. Gene Wilder’s Dr. Frederick “Fronkensteen” oscillates between tortured sincerity and manic absurdity.

The Monster,a marvel of comic restraint by Peter Boyle,is both terrifying and oddly touching, just as Whale’s creature once was.

And then there’s Marty Feldman’s Igor — a masterclass in meta-comedy. With his rolling eyes, fourth-wall glances and perpetually migrating hump, Feldman turns the loyal sidekick into the film’s anarchic spirit.

He moves through the Gothic gloom as though he knows he’s in a movie, puncturing the reverence with a wink but never breaking its spell. His cheerful insubordination (“Well, they were wrong then, weren’t they?”) perfectly embodies Brooks’s philosophy: 

chaos and affection, stitched together with laughter.

In the midst of the madness, Kenneth Mars’s one-armed Inspector Kemp marches in like a wind-up toy from another movie altogether. With his eye patch, absurd accent and impossibly elaborate arm gestures, Mars parodies the officious authority figures of old horror films while somehow giving him a strange dignity.

Mars’s character is a loving send-up of Lionel Atwill’s Inspector Krogh from Son of Frankenstein (1939), complete with a mechanical arm and a Teutonic accent that mangles syntax with operatic flair. Every “und” and clattering gesture adds to the film’s texture — he’s not just a joke but a reflection of Brooks’s love for the theatrical excess of Universal’s world.

And what a trio of women who bring the absurdity to life. Teri Garr’s Inga, with her innocent blonde cheer and impeccable comic rhythm, turns what could have been a one-note ingénue into a slyly knowing co-conspirator. Inga herself has no direct counterpart in Whale’s originals — she’s Brooks and Wilder’s invention, a sunny riff on the “lab assistant” archetype that classic horror never quite had.

Her line “Put the candle beck” remains a masterclass in timing — part parody of European horror accents, part testament to Garr’s gift for playing wide-eyed without being dim.

Cloris Leachman, as the forbidding housekeeper Frau Blücher, gives a master class in deadpan menace, every glare and line delivery dripping with unspoken mischief (“He was my boyfriend!” remains one of cinema’s great rug-pulls).

Madeline Kahn, meanwhile, turns a supporting role into an aria of comic timing — her prissy fiancée Elizabeth evolving from icy caricature to a torch-song diva in love with her monster.

Together, they embody the Brooks repertory ideal: fearless, shameless and in total command of tone.

What our Halloween audience responded to most were the film’s gloriously bawdy innuendos — proof that Mel Brooks never met a double entendre he didn’t like. When Frederick arrives outside his ancestral Transylvanian castle’s heavy wooden doors with their enormous metal door knockers, his line “What knockers!” followed by the buxom Inga’s oblivious “Thank you, doctor!” brought down the house.

Later, Frau Blücher’s very name sends horses screaming into the night — and our club members roaring. The banter about the creature’s “enormous schwanzstucker” had some of the viewers in tears. These moments don’t just earn laughs — they slyly expose the repressed sexuality simmering beneath the surface of classic horror.

And then there’s the “Elevate me” moment in the laboratory sequence, when Dr. Frankenstein attempts to animate the creature. As thunder rumbles and tension builds, he turns to his assistant Inga and asks, “Well, dear, are you ready?” followed by the iconic “Elevate me.” Inga, misunderstanding, replies with surprise, “Now? Right here?” The humor relies on miscommunication and innuendo — a hallmark of Brooks’s style. Inga briefly thinks he’s making an intimate request, but the confusion resolves instantly when she realizes he means the mechanical platform. Brooks seizes classic horror symbols — the arrogant scientist, the eerie lab gear — and infuses them with raw sexuality and, vaudeville flair.

On repeat viewings, I’ve come to appreciate a quieter gem: the early classroom sequence in which Frederick lectures his medical students. Wilder plays it with the perfect blend of arrogance and frustration — a man desperate to distance himself from his grandfather’s “mad” legacy. What makes the scene sing, though, is the smarmy young student who won’t let it go, pressing him about the infamous experiments. His condescending persistence — punctuated by the priceless delivery of “Why, the worm, sir” — always slays me.It’s the kind of throwaway moment that reveals Brooks’s genius for ensemble comedy: even the smallest roles hit the note of absurd pomposity that defines the film.

Half a century on, Young Frankenstein still works because it’s not content merely to mock the old horror films; it resurrects their spirit. Brooks and Wilder treat Whale’s visual poetry as sacred text — but they scribble in the margins with wild laughter. For a Halloween screening, it’s perfect: macabre yet joyous, steeped in nostalgia but defiantly alive. The Cinema Club purposely chose a movie to celebrate the season without gore or gloom. As the audience left — still laughing, still quoting “Blücher!” and neighing — I couldn’t help but feel that Brooks’s creation, like Frankenstein’s monster, has been stitched together with such care and joy that it will never truly die.