Young Frankenstein Blu-ray The Mel Brooks Collection

Young Frankenstein Blu-ray
The Mel Brooks Collection Blu-ray
Gene Wilder, Teri Garr, Marty Feldman
Directed by Mel Brooks
Originally released 1974
Black and White Widescreen
Fox Home Entertainment 2010
106 minutes

Irony is Universal turning down Mel Brooks and Young Frankenstein, his spoof and homage to the horror movies that were the studio’s bread and butter. Young Frankenstein is one of nine Mel Brooks comedy films in the Mel Brooks Collection on Blu-ray. This comedy features greats like Gene Wilder, Teri Garr, and Peter Boyle as the Monster. It is also the writer and director at his best without the overindulgent scenes of his later efforts.

Gene Wilder is Dr. Fron-kin-steen, grandson of the famous mad scientist. He inherits his grandfather’s castle and goes to take a look. There he meets Igor (Marty Feldman) and Inga (Garr) who will become his lovely assistant. Old castles have bookcases opening to secret passages and secret passages lead to secret laboratories and secret laboratories lead to secret experiments by Doctor Frankenstein.

Peter Boyle (Everybody Loves Raymond) is very good as the Monster and Madeline Kahn has a small but pivotal role as the Doctor’s girlfriend.

Young Frankenstein is full of great, short jokes including sight and musical gags and some great bits of comic dialogue. My favorite of the latter is “Werewolf!” “There wolf!”

This salute to Universal’s horror movies is also more faithful to the Mary Shelley book than most Frankenstein movies you will see.

Other movies in The Mel Brooks Collection Blu-ray 9 film set include Silent Movie, History of the World Part I, Blazing Saddles, Robin Hood Men in Tights, The Twelve Chairs, High Anxiety, To Be or Not to Be, and Spaceballs. The collection also includes a 120 page book about Mel Brooks and the movies in this box set.

Look for Richard Haydn (Max in The Sound of Music) as Herr Falkstein, Gene Hackman as the Blind Man, and a real member of the von Frankenstein family.

Special features on this comedy Blu-ray part of The Mel Brooks Collection are Commentary by Mel Brooks; Inside The Lab: Secret Formulas in the Making of Young Frankenstein; Deleted Scenes in SD and HD; It’s Alive! Creating A Monster Classic ; Making FrankenSense of Young Frankenstein; Transylvanian Lullaby: The Music of John Morris; The Franken-Track: A Monstrous Conglomeration of Trivia; Blucher Button; Outtakes; and Isolated Score Track (DTS MA)

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