I never thought I would include the word “unfortunately” when talking about getting to watch Mel Brooks’s iconic Young Frankenstein, but time makes fools of us all. Unfortunately, the Frankenstein double feature at Benaroya only featured live music for the first film and not the second. While it would have been a more cohesive experience, at the end of the day, I still got to see Young Frankenstein on the big screen for the first time. And to see it juxtaposed against one of the core films it spoofs was an especially good treat. While Young Frankenstein pokes good-natured fun at all five of the original Universal Frankenstein films, the most obvious influences are from the first two.
It is an altogether different experience to know that Brooks reused a lot of Kenneth Strickfaden’s original props and to see them side-by-side in different but eerily familiar labs, the only true difference being that one is inhabited by Colin Clive and the other by a wild-eyed Gene Wilder. The hermit scenes were an interesting contrast: one is a barely concealed depiction of gay domesticity while the other is a slapstick comedy of errors.
While I would have enjoyed having orchestral accompaniments for both films, the double feature was still a wonderful and seasonally appropriate experience. Personally, I’ve watched both Young Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein to death. Yet Benaroya offered the unique privilege of getting to experience them in a different light.
Getting to see the electrically-fried bride, one of the most iconic figures in horror movie history, with an entire orchestra backing up every hiss and each dramatic tilt of her head felt a bit like being transported back to even before the Bride’s time. (Most films had live accompaniment before the advent of talkies.) Finally, adding Young Frankenstein to the mix highlighted the artistry of the parody and showcased Brooks and Wilder’s reverence for the original films.