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It’s Not What You Say It’s How You Say It

Young Frankenstein (1974)
Dir. Mel Brooks
Written by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks
Starring: Gene Wilder, Teri Garr, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn Cloris Leachman

Young Frankenstein, like all of Mel Brooks’ films, is many things. Firstly, a comedy, but it also touches upon different genres such as: satire, parody, homage…but more to the point could it be considered a Screwball?

This is the second Mel Brooks film that I have ever seen. The first that I saw this past summer was High Anxiety, a parody of suspense films—especially Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It was funny—but not laugh out loud funny. YF took a while to grow on me but now I love it. I’ve also seen Blazing Saddles recently which I have to say was difficult to watch. I know that it was a satire but the number of n-words bandied about so casually threw me for a loop. Brooks has, what I would term a heavy-handed approach to humor. It slaps you in the face and punches you in the stomach. Both Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder wrote this film, so it is a little subtler in some ways than a pure Brooks’ film.

Another descriptive term that I would use would be deliberate, every word and movement is formulated to get the most absurdity out of it possible. This film is a parody of the old black and white monster movies so the pace of the film’s dialogue is rather slow. Gene Wilder has a singular way of expressing himself, he uses leisurely and measured tones interspersed with outbursts that come out of nowhere as his comedic markers.

YF is chock full of sight gags and verbal gags; every scene is full of jokes, jests, witticisms, quips, puns, double entendres; practical jokes, stunts, larks; informal cracks, wisecracks, and one-liners—you get the jist. Accents are especially important: added “zes” and “unds” along with a few German words for good measure are added to the mix for optimum comedic effect.

Upon the fifth or sixth viewing I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not a screwball. It is too many things to be considered a neo-screwball. Mel Brooks’ films taken as whole are screwy, definitely, but they are in a different comedy bracket—more of a pastiche. When compared to a film such as His Girl Friday YF’s dialogue is hysterical but the delivery is so different.

Women are not very important in this film, which is another reason why it can’t compare to other Screwball comedies. There are couplings and love triangles and inevitable marriages but this film is more about the individual gags then the narrative as a whole. This film definitely has some Bromance elements that I could potentially explore but that topic is for another day and another blog. On the surface this film has some of the tropes of classic screwball such as:
Ø Marriage (in some way shape or form, e.g. couple getting divorced, married, or re- married)
Ø Verbal gymnastics or sparring
Ø Physical Comedy (not required)
but overall it does not use them in the way that a Screwball film does.