Then I explained, “It’s called cinematic verisimilitude. It’s mimicking exactly the period photography in the original Frankenstein. James Whale didn’t have his camera on big rubber wheels gliding over a plywood floor. All his slow-moving shots were made on a slightly bumpy studio floor. And a lot of them had that exact little shake in them.”
It gave it that 1931 quality that I was dying to get in the film. I loved that little shake!
Jerry broke into a broad smile and said, “Okay, if that’s what you want—you got it. We have all the little shake you’ll ever need.”
* * *
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One of the problems I had on set was constantly reshooting because of laughing from the crew. So one day I went out and bought a hundred white handkerchiefs. I handed them out and said to the crew, “If you feel like laughing, don’t! Stick this handkerchief in your mouth.”
I turned around once in the middle of shooting a scene and saw a sea of white handkerchiefs in everybody’s mouths.
I thought, I’ve got a big hit here. This movie is going to be hilarious.
There’s only one true test of a comedy, and that’s outright laughter. I don’t care how beautiful the lighting is, how superlative the script is, how wonderful the performances are. If you’re making a comedy and the audience isn’t falling down, holding their bellies, screaming with laughter, you’ve probably got a failure.
First laughter and then everything else.
(Shame on me, but it’s true.)
One of the white-handkerchief-in-the-mouth scenes actually got me. I was struggling not to break into laughter. I didn’t have a white handkerchief to shove in my mouth—I’d given them all out and didn’t save one for myself…and I really needed it!
The offending scene was the one in which Gene, Teri, and Marty are at the dinner table. Dr. Frankenstein is in the depths of depression over his failure to bring the monster back to life.
Teri says, “You haven’t even touched your food.”
Gene responds by sticking his hands into his beef stew and boiled potatoes and saying, “There! Now I’ve touched it. Happy?”
Marty, trying to lighten the mood, blurts out, “You know, I’ll never forget my old dad, when these things would happen to him, the things he’d say to me.”
Gene and Teri are patiently waiting to hear what Marty’s dad used to tell him, and finally Gene asks, “What did he say?”
Marty replies, “What the hell are you doing in the baffroom day and night! Why don’t you get out of there and give someone else a chawnce!” Then he takes a big bite of his boiled potato and just chews.
Somehow, I held it together, and after I said cut, we all collapsed in a heap on the floor and exploded into nonstop laughter. That was a near miss.
* * *
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For our locations for the movie we used the back lot of MGM, which gave us two wonderful outdoor sets. One was the quaint Bavarian village, replete with authentic winding cobblestone streets, and the other the graveyard where we find and dig up the huge body that becomes Frankenstein’s monster. It was during that scene that we came up with the great line in which Gene (covered with mud and dirt from the digging) says:
Dr. Frankenstein: What a filthy job.
Igor: Could be worse.
Dr. Frankenstein: How?
Igor: Could be raining.
It immediately starts pouring, and as they are drenched with rain Dr. Frankenstein fixes Igor with a look that is unforgettable.
* * *
—
I loved working with Gene. He had incredible range as an actor, especially in the scene where he goes into the dark cell where the monster is chained to a huge chair. He comes in so sure of himself; just before he goes into the monster’s cell he says, “No matter what you hear in there, no matter how cruelly I beg you, no matter how terribly I may scream, do not open this door…”
He’s so in charge. So smart. He tiptoes in and when the monster wakes up and growls at him, he goes from this commanding doctor into a terrified frightened little child. From self-assurance and perfect command to a scared kid banging on the door and screaming, “Let me out. Let me out of here. Get me the hell out of here! What’s the matter with you people! I was joking! Don’t you know a joke when you hear one? HAHAHAHA! JESUS CHRIST GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Talk about range! He went all the way emotionally from A to Z. I loved sitting in a theater, watching that scene, as the audience exploded into gales of laughter all around me.
* * *
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The “walk this way” scene in Young Frankenstein was a salute to the vaudeville shtick in which one comic says to the other “walk this way” meaning “follow me!” But instead of just following him the second banana imitates his comical walk.
So when Marty says to Gene, “Walk this way!” Gene starts to just follow him, but Marty stops him and says, “No, walk this way.” And Gene catches on and does Marty’s crazy vaudeville stooped walk. Thank god once again for white handkerchiefs in the mouth!
(“Walk this way” started on Young Frankenstein, but for some reason I stuck that iconic bit into many of my later movies.)
* * *
—
One of my favorite moments in Young Frankenstein was where Freddie, Inga, and Igor discover that the strange music emanating from the bowels of the castle that led them to the laboratory was being played on the violin by none other than Frau Blücher.
Frederick: Then it was you all the time!
Frau Blücher: Yes!
Frederick: You played that music in the middle of the night!
Frau Blücher: Yes!
Frederick: …to get us into the laboratory!
Frau Blücher: Yes!
Frederick: That was your cigar smoldering in the ashtray!
Frau Blücher: Yes!
Frederick: And it was you who left my grandfather’s book out for me to find!
Frau Blücher: Yes!
Frederick: So that I would…
Frau Blücher: Yes!
Frederick: Then you and Victor were…
Frau Blücher: YES! YES! SAY IT!…HE VAS MY BOYFRIEND!
* * *
—
It wasn’t just that I was blessed with an amazingly talented group of actors on Young Frankenstein—that alone never guarantees success. As clichéd as it sounds, there was an indefinable chemistry on the set, a magic in the way the ensemble of gifted misfits worked together.
It all started with Gene, who was Dr. Frankenstein. He completely understood his character. He was that guy. Gene intuited all my directions. Sometimes all I needed from Gene was either for him to be softer when he was screaming or louder when he whispered, but I never had to give him emotional directions because he knew them already. I think he was truly Promethean in that role. There was madness in his eyes and fire in his performance.
Gene and I got along swimmingly during filming, aside from one big fight. It was about the scene where he and the monster sing and dance to “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” It was Gene’s idea, and I told him I thought it was a great idea and very funny, but it was too far out. I was afraid it might have made the screenplay border on being unbelievable. I insisted that it was too silly and would tear the continuity of the movie to pieces.
Cloris Leachman as the unforgettable Frau Blücher. (Horses whinny!)
Staging Madeline Kahn’s surprise entrance on the set of Young Frankenstein.