Movie Review - Young Frankenstein
Last night I watched another movie that I had never seen. Previously, I have posted my top 103 movies of all time list as a blog here and elsewhere. Occasionally, I see someone name Young Frankenstein, as one of their favorites. Now, I admit, I am not a big Mel Brooks fan. I do think that "High Anxiety" was excellent, indeed his best. However, I had not seen Young Frankenstein, so I was unable to retort.So, appropriately, while it was thundering & lightening outside for real here last night, I snuggled up with my comforter and watched this DVD.
While one can usually count on getting at least 20 laughs from a Mel Brooks movie, except for about 6 good lines in the movie (i.e. "Wow, what knockers") this movie was almost a total waste of time. This, despite it being jam packed with excellent movie stars including; Gene Wilder in the lead role, the lovely Teri Garr as his assistant, Inga and Marty Feldman as his assistant, Igor. I do feel that both Madeline Kahn and especially Cloris Leachman did good jobs with the limited roles they were given, while Gene Hackman was somewhat ineffective. Nonetheless, the movie produced very few good laughs and little else to take home either comically nor intellectually.
My suggestion is to rent High Anxiety if you want truly worthwhile Mel Brooks, but optionally perhaps review some of Alfred Hitchcock's films to fully get what is being parodied.