Filmmaker Mel Brooks will sink his hands and feet into cement in the forecourt of the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood Monday, one day before the Blu-ray release of “Young Frankenstein,” which he has called his favorite film.
“Young Frankenstein,” a parody of horror films, was released on Dec. 15, 1974, and is 13th on the American Film Institute’s list of the funniest American movies.
Brooks directed the film and joined star Gene Wilder in writing the screenplay, for which they received an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay, losing to the script written by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo for “The Godfather: Part II.”
“Young Frankenstein” also received an Oscar nomination for best sound, losing to “Earthquake.”
Brooks said in a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times that “Young Frankenstein” stemmed from a conversation with Wilder during the shooting of the Western parody “Blazing Saddles.”
“He said, ‘I have this idea that there could be another ‘Frankenstein,”‘ Brooks said in the report.
“I said not another – we’ve had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law, we don’t need another Frankenstein. His idea was very simple: What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos. I said, ‘That’s funny.”‘
Wilder starred as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, a physician and lecturer at an American medical school who insists his last name is pronounced Fronkensteen. He inherits his family’s estate in Transylvania, then decides to resume his grandfather’s experiments in re-animating the dead.
The cast also included Marty Feldman as the hunchbacked, bulging-eyed servant Igor; Peter Boyle as the Monster; Teri Garr as personal assistant Inga; and Cloris Leachman as housekeeper Frau Blucher.
– City News Service