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This is Fresh Air.
I'm David Bianculli.
In 1974, Mel Brooks directed and co-wrote one of the greatest film genre parodies in movie history.
Actually, two of them.
Blazing Saddles, his Western parody, came out in February of that year.
And in December Young Frankenstein premiered, brilliantly lampooning and celebrating horror movies in general and James Whale's 1930s Frankenstein movies in particular.
Because until December it's still technically the 50th anniversary year of that monster movie comedy.
And because today is Halloween, we decided it would be a Halloween treat to devote today's show to young Frankenstein.
Before that film, writer-director Mel Brooks already had cast Gene Wilder in two of his best comedies The Producers and Blazing Saddles.
While filming that latter movie with Brooks, Gene Wilder started sketching out an idea for a movie of his own.
It was a comic version of Frankenstein, and the Bride of Frankenstein conceived to have him play the starring role as the grandson of mad scientist Victor Frankenstein.
Wilder asked Brooks to co-write and direct it, and they began work on it immediately.
Young Frankenstein was shot in black and white, and Brooks was so faithful to the pace and look of Wales' original films.
He even tracked down and used the original lab equipment from the Frankenstein movies.
He also assembled an astounding cast in support of Gene Wilder.
Two previous Oscar winners, Cloris Leachman and Gene Hackman, eagerly accepted minor roles.
And also in the cast were Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Terry Garr, and Marty Feldman.
In an early scene Wilder, as the scientist's grandson, is met at the Transylvania train station by his future lab assistant, played by Feldman.
Dr. Frankenstein.
Frankenstein.
You're putting me on.
No, it's pronounced Frankenstein.
Do you also say Froderick?
No.
Frederick.
Well, why isn't it Froderick Frankenstein?
It isn't.
It's Frederick Frankenstein.
I see.
You must be Igor.
No, it's pronounced I-gor.
But they told me it was Igor.
Well, they were wrong then, weren't they?
On today's show we'll listen to archive interviews featuring Gene Wilder, Terry Garr, Cloris Leachman, Peter Boyle and Mel Brooks himself.
We'll start with Gene Wilder, who spoke with Terry Gross in 2005.
He recalled how he and Mel began collaborating on Young Frankenstein.
I was writing every day and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written and then he'd say yeah yeah yeah okay yeah, okay.
We need a villain or we need whatever it was.
And we'd talk a little bit and then he'd go away and I would write all the next day.
And he'd come and look at it.
And then one day, when he read the pages I had written about Dr Frankenstein and the creature sing and dance to Putin on the Ritz.
He said, are you crazy?
This is frivolous.
You're just being frivolous.
Well, my temperature rose and after 20 minutes or so of arguing, my color went from red to, I think, blue or purple.
I started screaming.
And then all of a sudden he said, okay, it's in.
And I said, well, why did you put me through this?
And he said, I wasn't sure if it was right.
And I thought, if you didn't argue for it, then it was wrong.
And if you did, it was right.
So you convinced me.
Well, this is such a classic scene.
I mean you as Dr Frankenstein, are presenting in a theater your creation.
You know the Frankenstein monster played by Peter Boyle.
And you're both in top hat and tails.
You introduce him.
Then you sing a duet of Puttin' on the Ritz and, you know, do a little soft shoe.
And it's really such a wonderful scene.
So how did you come up with a way to, with an excuse to do it with the plot point, to get in the production number?
Because we had to convince the scientific members of Transylvania that, with the procedure I was using on the creature, he could be taught to be a civilized human being, what I called a man about town.
And it was for their sake that I was doing it.
And I just thought of the funniest way of doing it, that's all.
But instead of a monster who's going to kill their children, it was someone who could sing and dance.
Well, I think we have no choice here but to listen to you and Peter Boyle doing Puttin' on the Ritz from the soundtrack of Young Frankenstein.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, up until now, you've seen the creature perform the simple mechanics of motor activity.
But for what you are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius.
Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, Damen und Herren, from what was once an inarticulate mass of lifeless tissues May I now present a cultured, sophisticated man about town.
Hit it!
If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, why don't you go where fashion sits?
Different types who wear a day coat, pants with stripes or cutaway coat, perfect fits.
Dressed up like a million dollar trooper.
Trying mighty hard to look like Gary Cooper.
Come let's mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks or Romborellas in their mix.
Gene Wilder, you came up with the premise for Young Frankenstein.
You officially share credits with.
Milbrook shares credit with you for the screenplay and the screen story.
What gave you the idea of writing Young Frankenstein?
Did you love the Frankenstein movie?
Well...
At the time, I didn't know why.
But I know now that when I was a little boy I was scared to death of the Frankenstein films, actually because there were four of them in particular that influenced me.
And in all these years later, I wanted it to come out with a happy ending.
And...
I think it was my fear of the Frankenstein movies when I was 8 and 9 and 10 years old that made me want to write that story, that I was a young doctor or dental hygienist and found out that my great-grandfather, Beaufort von Frankenstein, left me the whole estate.
That was all I had in mind at the time.
And then my agent at the time, Mike Medavoy, before he became a movie mogul, called me up and said how about a movie with you and Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman?
And I said, well, what makes you think of that?
He said, because I now handle you and Peter and Marty.
And I said, well, as it happens, I do have something.
Well, send it to me right now.
I said, no, I want to work on it a little bit.
And that night I wrote two more pages.
The Transylvania station scene, almost verbatim the way it is in the film.
And then I sent it off to him.
And he said, I think I can sell this and maybe we can get Mel to direct.
And I said, I don't think he's going to direct something he didn't conceive of.
And Mel, you have to understand this important point.
He had done The Producers for $50,000 over two years, and he didn't make a penny from it.
Then he did The Twelve Chairs, $50,000 for two more years, and didn't make a penny from it.
That's four years of work.
Um...
And then they offered him quite a bit of money to direct Young Frankenstein.
And he took it.
He called me first.
He said, what are you getting me into?
I said, nothing you don't want to get into.
He said, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
The next day, I got a call saying Mel's going to do it.
There's quite a few really classic jokes in Young Frankenstein.
One of them, and this seems like it's probably the oldest joke in the world, and I'm not sure, Oh dear.
I think you know the walk this way joke?
No.
Why don't you describe how it happens in the movie and tell me if it's something that you and Brooks came up with or whether this joke has a long previous life, because it seems like I don't know.
I ever heard it before the movie, but it seems like it should have been around forever.
Do you know what I mean?
I had never heard of it before.
And while we were filming outdoors on location, Mel says to Marty Feldman Marty, Who's playing the doctor's assistant?
Igor.
Your assistant, yeah.
Or Igor.
He says, bend over and say to Gene, walk this way, and then crouch down and walk away.
And I said, Mel, what does that mean?
He said, I'll tell you later.
I'll tell you later.
Just do it for now.
And so I took the cane and I followed Marty after the camera started rolling and I walked this funny walk and everyone laughed afterwards.
And I said, now will you tell me what it means?
He says...
A man has a terrible case of hemorrhoids.
He goes into a drugstore and he says, have you got some talcum powder for me?
I've got terrible hemorrhoids.
And the pharmacist says, walk this way.
And he says, if I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the talcum powder.
And I said, where did that come from?
He says, it's an old vaudeville routine.
It's years old.
But I had never heard of it before.
But it worked.
And another real classic one, when you get to the castle, There's these large brass door knockers.
With knobs.
With knobs on them.
And as you're approaching the door, you lift... Terry Garr.
Yeah, that's right.
You lift Terry Garr out of the wagon that you've arrived in.
And your head is kind of buried in her chest as Igor knocks on the door and you say... No.
No, you tell it.
You tell it.
Well, he knocks on the door and just when Terry's breast is brushed up against my face, I look and see the knockers and I say what knockers.
And she says, thank you, doctor.
Now, how did you guys come up with that one?
It also sounds like this is a classic.
No, that's Mel.
That wasn't written.
He just said when you lift her off the wagon like that, look at the knockers and say what knockers.
Well, I thought it was very funny at the time.
But that wasn't written.
That was just improvised.
It wasn't improvised.
He just said, say what, knockers.
And it worked.
What knockers!
Oh, thank you, Doctor.
Now I'm thinking you and Mel Brooks.
You're both Jewish, but you're from very different parts of the United States and probably had different experiences growing up, because he's very East Coast, very New York, very Borscht Belt.
And you grew up, was it Milwaukee?
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Yeah, so, I mean, didn't have the Borscht Belt.
No, no, no.
Probably didn't know vaudeville as well as he did.
No, and don't say as well.
I didn't know it at all.
I'd read about a few things, but that's all.
So what were some of the points of commonality and difference between the two of you and your sense of theater and showbiz?
Well, when I was still in school and I saw your show of shows, which was my favorite television show with Sid Caesar Mel Brooks was one of the writers.
At first, he started out as... low man on the totem pole until he advanced to head writer.
But I had a feeling for what he had written.
I wasn't sure if I was right.
And then when I met him there was a closeness because I loved that kind of humor, his kind of humor.
It wasn't any part of my life in my humor, but I just appreciated it.
There was an affinity there somewhere.
And...
In so many ways, we're not at all alike, and in some ways, we're very much alike.
When people, especially from France, would ask me to talk about, so they could write about New York, Jewish humor.
I'd say, I don't know anything about New York Jewish humor.
I know who Zero Mostel was and I know Mel Brooks, but that's about all I could tell you about New York.
Jewish humor.
And I certainly didn't have New York Jewish humor, but I was in three Mel Brooks films, so people thought I was a connoisseur of New York Jewish humor.
My humor was quite different.
Mine was Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother and the world's greatest lover and haunted honeymoon, the woman in red, see no evil, hear no evil, but his was much broader and I think much funnier, too.
Jane Wilder, speaking with Terry Gross in 2005.
He died in 2016.
After a break.
Another young Frankenstein star and standout, Terry Garr, as the doctor's very smitten and sexy lab assistant.
This is Fresh Air.
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Next up in our Young Frankenstein appreciation is Terry Garr, who was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting actress work in Tootsie.
Earlier in her career she had danced in nine Elvis Presley movies and made her acting screen debut opposite Gene Hackman in The Conversation.
In Young Frankenstein, she played Inga, the assistant and girlfriend to Gene Wilder's mad scientist.
In this scene from Young Frankenstein, the doctor's fiancée Elizabeth has been escorted to the castle by his assistant Igor, where she meets the doctor's other lab assistant, the beautiful Inga.
Madeline Kahn plays Elizabeth, Marty Feldman plays Igor, and Terry Garr plays Inga.
I'd like you to meet my assistants, Inga and Igor.
How do you do?
How do you do?
This is my financier, Elizabeth.
Oh, I'm so happy to meet you at last.
Financie.
Excuse me, darling.
What is it exactly that you do do?
Uh, well, I assist Dr. Frankenstein in the laboratory.
We have intellectual discussions, aren't we?
As a matter of fact, we were just having fun as you were driving us.
But I... What?
Uh, Igor, would you give me a hand with the bags?
Certainly.
You take the blonde and I'll take the one in the tavern.
Terry Gross spoke with Terry Garr in 2005.
Well, let me ask you about another movie you were in, and that is Young Frankenstein or Frankenstein.
Frankenstein, yeah.
Directed by Mel Brooks.
How did you get to work with him?
Well, there was rumors going around town that there was a big movie being cast and there was lots of girls going up for this audition, and I got my agent to get me in on it.
You know, 500 girls.
When I went there, Mel Brooks said we're casting for the part of the fiancé, the financier.
He called it.
But I want Madeline Kahn to do it.
I just want you to know.
But she doesn't want to do it because she doesn't want to do a comedy.
I went in and I got a call back and call back.
And I was very excited that I even got a call back.
Finally, one day I got a call back and he said, Madeline has decided to do this part.
But if you can come back tomorrow, I'll give you a chance to audition for the part of Inga, the lab assistant.
But you have to have a German accent.
And so I got 24 hours to get a German accent together.
And I did.
Because I copied Cher's wig maker who had a German accent.
You were working on the Sonny and Cher show at the time.
Yes, I was working on the Sonny and Cher show at the time.
Did you learn things about comic timing working with Mel Brooks on Young Frankenstein?
Well, I don't think you can learn comic timing.
I think I must have innately grown up with, you know, my mother and father from Vaudeville and stuff and lots of jokes around the house.
I had been working on Sonny and Cher Show as a dancer and also in these horrible comedy sketches.
And I sort of had learned comic timing then.
Also, I was an incredible fan of Mel Brooks, the 2,000-year-old man.
I had listened to those records hundreds of times as a kid and memorized them and did them over and over again.
So I sort of knew his rhythm.
But he is one of God's gifts to this planet.
Mel Brooks is just the funniest man in the world.
He is really funny.
What did he call you, a shiksa goddess?
Shiksa goddess, my long-waisted shiksa goddess.
And then he called Peter Boyle and I, come here, treif.
We were both treif.
I don't know what it means exactly.
And then at one point— Not kosher.
I said, well, Mel, you're so wonderful.
I wish I was Jewish.
You're Jewish.
You are Jewish by injection.
I don't know what he meant, but okay.
Can we talk about your parents a little bit?
Please.
Your mother, as you mentioned, was a rockette.
You say she had wonderful legs.
She did what hosiery adds to to show off her legs?
Yeah, she called herself Legs Lind.
And then she also was like a wardrobe person for several TV shows?
Yeah, I think a lot of dancers go into wardrobe afterwards.
I don't know why that happens, but it's true.
And then he came out to Hollywood to be in movies, and that didn't pan out, and he became very ill.
And he passed away.
So my mother had to support three kids by her wits.
So she went and got a job in the studios as a costumer.
In fact, she was a costumer on Young Frankenstein before I even got the job.
And she told, don't tell anyone I'm your mother.
I said, what is this about?
It's so weird.
Anyway, I learned— Why didn't you want anyone to know?
I do not know to this day.
Was it for her sake or your sake?
I don't know, but finally I told Mel.
I said, you know that lady over there?
That's my mom.
He was so great because he's just a great guy.
We'll bring her over here.
He was wonderful.
Terry Garr, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005.
Terry Garr died last year.
After a break, we'll hear from three more young Frankenstein alumni Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman and Mel Brooks.
And Justin Chang reviews the new film, Begonia.
I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air.
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On today's Halloween show we're saluting Young Frankenstein, the Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder monster movie comedy that is celebrating its golden anniversary.
Next up is Peter Boyle.
Today, Boyle is best known for his comedy work on television as Ray's grumbling father on the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.
But by the time he agreed to play the creature in Young Frankenstein Boyle was a dramatic character actor with roles in Taxi Driver, The Candidate and Joe.
Terry Gross spoke with Peter Boyle in 1988.
How did you get the part of the monster?
Uh...
Gee, I forget how I got it.
I knew Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman and I knew Mel and there was a conversation in the they wanted to do a spoof on Frankenstein and it was decided you know, I was best for the monster, Marty was best for Igor, and blah blah blah, like that.
And Gene Wilder, you know, wrote the original script and then he and Mel rewrote it and it became a movie.
It just happened.
So did you go back and watch the original, study Boris Karloff?
I didn't have to because I had seen the original when I was about 12 years old, in the era before television, where there was a movie in downtown Philadelphia that used to show old movies.
And a friend of mine and I went down to see the original Frankenstein, and it scared me.
And it made such a strong impression on me that I really didn't have to go back and do research, because I patterned my performance on Karloff and did it a certain way.
And I wanted to make it like there was somebody inside the monster.
Did you remember the monster's grunts, which of course you had to do?
Yes, of course.
Yes.
The makeup is actually very funny for the film because you could see where the makeup is.
Well, Young Frankenstein really sort of spoofed the early Frankenstein movies, which were actually among the first sound movies ever made.
They were made in 1931 and the lighting and the makeup was very much in the style of the silent movies.
It hadn't gotten that sophisticated.
So some of the makeup was, you were aware that it was makeup, that that was somewhat intentional.
Yeah.
One of the highlights, I think, of Young Frankenstein is when Gene Wilder, who plays Dr Frankenstein the scientist, is showing off you, his monster, his creation, to a big audience of scientists.
And then as he's showing you off, you do a duet with him of Puttin' on the Ritz.
Yes.
In full top hat, white tie and tails.
Mm-hmm.
And seven, you know, and shoes that are elevated eight, have soles that are eight inches thick.
You know, because, you know, that's the part I remember.
And I had to tap dance in those.
If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, why don't you go where fashion sits?
Harry Gross spoke with Peter Boyle in 1988.
He died in 2006.
And now another of that film's scene-stealing supporting players, Cloris Leachman, who had won an Oscar years earlier for her supporting dramatic work on The Last Picture Show.
She played Frau Blucher, a longtime resident of the Transylvania castle, a woman so scary horses would react in fear whenever they heard her name.
Steady!
How do you do?
I am Dr. Frankenstein.
This is my assistant, Inga.
May I present Frau Blucher.
I wonder what's got into them.
Your rooms have been prepared, Herr Doctor, if you will follow me.
Igor, would you bring the bags as soon as you're finished, please?
Yes, Master.
After you, Frau Blucher.
Terry Gross spoke with Cloris Leachman in 2009.
You've made, what, two or three movies with Mel Brooks.
The first was Young Frankenstein, in which you played Frau Blucher.
Blucher.
I want to play a scene from this, so just to set it up.
Gene Wilder plays Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, who is the... Frankenstein.
Frankenstein.
Frankenstone.
Frankenstein.
Igor.
And he's the grandson of the famous mad scientist who created the monster.
He was my boyfriend.
Then he learns he's inherited the Frankenstein estate.
So he goes to the mansion in Transylvania.
And your character, Frau Blocher, is one of the servants there.
And she was in love with the mad scientist.
And in this scene, Gene Wilder, the young Dr. Frankenstein, goes to the lab.
Falkenstern.
With his two assistants, where he finds you releasing the monster from his restraints.
Here's the scene.
Frau Blucher!
Stop!
Don't come closer!
What are you doing?
I'm going to set him free!
No!
No, you mustn't!
Yes!
Are you insane?
He'll kill you!
No, he won't.
Not this one.
He is as gentle as a lamb.
Stand back.
Stand back, for the love of God, he has a rotten brain.
It's not rotten.
It's a good brain.
It's rotten, I tell you.
Rotten.
Ick's nigh on the otten ray.
I'm not afraid.
I know what he likes.
That music.
It's in your blood.
It's in the blood of all Frankensteins.
It erases the soul when words are useless.
Your grandfather used to play it to the creature he was making.
Then it was you all the time.
Yes.
Yes!
Yes!
That's my guest, Cloris Leachman, with Gene Wilder.
Can you believe it's the same one who played on Raymond?
I love Raymond.
Oh, Peter Boyle, who plays the monster.
Yeah.
Isn't it remarkable to be the same person who's doing those very divergent roles?
Oh, yeah.
He was a great actor.
He was a great actor.
Well, how did you figure out how to play Frau Brücher?
Brücher.
Brücher.
I didn't know.
I had a wonderful hairdo by Mary, the head of the hair department, and a 20th and a wonderful costume.
They made it fit me perfectly, and it was wonderfully designed.
And that's all I knew, and I was made up.
Now I go on the set, and I don't have any idea how to be Frau Brücher or have any German accent.
I'd never done one before.
So all the time when they were shooting, I kept saying, Do you know a German accent?
How?
To everybody.
And about three people there thought they maybe they didn't know for sure they tried.
And I think one of them was Mel Brooks' mother.
I think she helped me the most.
Was she from Germany?
I don't know anything.
When I first came out the door and I say, I am Frau Blucher.
And I think it said with such measurement, I was so careful to try to do it right.
That's why it's so slow.
Otherwise, I'd say, I am Frau Blucher.
But I said, I am Frau Blucher.
The running gag in Young Frankenstein is whenever anybody says Frau Blucher, the horse is Winnie.
Mel told me a few years ago that Blucher meant glue.
I'm not sure that's true, but it sure is funny.
So it's like they're threatening the horses with the blue factory.
So what did you learn about comedy working with Mel Brooks?
Hmm.
I'll tell you one thing.
I was going up the steps with Jean and the other two.
Remember in the castle, I'm going to show them around.
And I had a candelabra with the candles not lit.
And I turn, I say, stay close to the candles.
The staircase can be treacherous.
And then Mel came up to me, climbed up the steps and whispered in my ear.
And it was a line reading.
And here it is.
Stay close to the candles.
The staircase can be treacherous.
Which means we've already lost a couple of people.
Cloris Leachman, speaking to Terry Gross in 2009.
She died in 2021.
Coming up to complete our Halloween Day tribute the director and co-writer of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks.
This is Fresh Air.
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By the time he directed and co-wrote Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks already had written for TV's Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour recorded hit comedy records in which Carl Reiner interviewed him as the 2000-year-old man, co-created the TV series Get Smart and directed such movies as The Producers, The Twelve Chairs and Blazing Saddles.
I spoke with Mel Brooks in 2013 and offered the opinion that you couldn't create a great parody of something unless you both understood and enjoyed the thing you were lampooning.
I loved westerns as a little kid, and I loved horror films.
And I had fun with them.
But I also saluted the glory of the Western and the glory of James Wales.
You know Frankenstein and Dracula.
And we were, you know, what does a little kid in Brooklyn have?
When it comes to art, it ain't much, but it's those movies that you got in and we didn't have any money.
I was the baby boy of four, all together we're four brothers.
My mother lost her husband, I lost my father.
I was only two, and he died of tuberculosis.
And we were really, you know...
I mean, dead poor.
And I remember my mother gave me three bottles.
I wanted desperately to see a Ken Maynard Western.
I mean, desperately.
And you get two other pictures with it.
You get three pictures for a dime.
She gave me nine cents.
I mean she gave me three bottles which three cents on each deposit bottle at Mr Shanus's grocery store.
I had nine cents.
I needed another penny.
And I said, Mom, I need another penny to get into the movies.
It must have been about, you know, seven or eight.
And she said, I don't have it.
So she went, she knocked on Mrs. Miller's door.
She said, Mrs. Miller, we don't have any cash in the house.
Can I have a penny?
So I cherish those movies because they really lifted my spirits and are indelibly engraved in my brain as important steps in my world education.
And what about, say, Alfred Hitchcock, whom you lampooned in High Anxiety?
Those would have come a little later for you, but you clearly loved those too.
I always thought you know that Alfred Hitchcock was the very best director who ever directed films.
And when I was doing, I had the idea for High Anxiety.
I wrote him a letter saying basically dear Mr Hitchcock, you know I do genre parodies and I, in my estimation you are a genre and that you're just amazing and I would like to do a movie about, dedicated to you and based on your style and your work.
And he called me and he said, I love Blazing Saddles.
I think you're a very talented guy.
And I come to my office.
I came to his office at Universal.
And he told me to come back every Friday at a quarter to 12 because at 12.30 we would eat.
So 45 minutes of work.
And he would work on my script on high anxiety with me.
And he said, well, don't leave out this and don't leave out that.
He said, what are you going to do about the birds?
I said, well, gee, at the moment I haven't included it.
And he said, well, why don't you have them attack you with their duty?
He said, it's going to be funny.
I said, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hitchcock.
So he gave me the birds and he gave me a couple of others.
He gave me one joke I couldn't use.
He's a very, very interesting writer.
What was the joke that you couldn't use?
Well, I couldn't use it because it wasn't part of his work.
I loved him.
He was colorful.
He was sweet.
And he saw the rough cut of high anxiety.
And he got up and wiggled by me.
Never said a word.
I said, oh, my God.
It's, ah, I'm ruined.
It's terrible.
And he left, and 24 hours later, a beautiful wooden box arrives, placed on my desk.
It is six magnums of Chateau Aubriant, 1961.
Priceless.
Maybe the greatest wine ever made, including Rothschild or any other.
And with a little note saying, have no anxiety over high anxiety.
It's wonderful.
Love, Hitch.
Now, you seem to have a great track record directing and writing for women.
I mean not only Madeleine Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Terry Garr, getting really wonderful comic performances from these women.
What was your method?
Well, you know, it was respecting their ability to deliver comedy as well as, and sometimes a lot better than, male comedians.
And they knew that I respected their ability and their talent.
And they gave all because of it.
And they weren't ashamed or afraid to reveal, maybe unconscious aspects of their comedy talent which may have been a little off color, a little crazy or a little bizarre that they wouldn't show anybody, but they'd show it to me because they knew I respected the full range of their gifts.
Young Frankenstein came out the same year as Blazing Saddles.
The standout scene has Gene Wilder as the scientist and Peter Boyle as the creature singing, putting on the ritz.
And I know that that was not your idea.
That was co-writer Gene Wilder's.
Yes.
So how long did it take before you figured out he was right?
And then I have a question about what sort of direction you gave to Peter Boyle for that number, especially his singing.
Yeah.
Well actually, when Gene first brought it up to show the wizardry of this Dr Frankenstein coming up with this incredible creature reanimating dead tissue.
And not only does it move, does it walk and talk.
But it also dazzles you with song and dance, you know.
So I said, I think we're tearing it, Gene.
I think, you know, we're going too far.
We want some of the very similitudinous quality that was in the original James Whale movie, you know, which was serious and scary.
And I don't want to lose the seriousness and the scariness of it. just for taking comedy too far.
And he kept pushing.
He said, no, no, it will demonstrate the doctor's abilities to teach the monster.
And finally, he kept bugging me.
And I said, look, OK.
I'm going to shoot it and I'm going to put it aside and we'll see whether or not it's useful in the main body of the picture okay.
He said, okay, that's all I ask.
Just shoot it and look at it later when you're putting it together.
And I shot it and I still was afraid of it.
And then when I saw it later, with all the film that we had collected, I said gee, it may be the best thing in the film.
And I called Gene and I said, you're absolutely right all the time.
And I'm glad.
It's in.
Totally.
And I'm looking on the cutting room floor for any outtakes.
And what direction did you give to Peter Boyle?
And was putting on the Ritz always the first song choice?
Yes, always.
Irving Berlin.
And I said, Peter, sing it from your heart.
Sing it like it's a cry of love and freedom and everything you can think of that's good.
And he did.
Yeah!
Mel Brooks spoke with me in 2013.
Mel Brooks was born in 1926 and he's still got projects in pre-production, including two planned films, Spaceballs 2 and Very Young Frankenstein.
Happy Halloween, Mel.
In the new movie Begonia, which is now playing in theaters, Emma Stone stars as a high-powered CEO who gets kidnapped by a low-ranking employee, played by Jesse Plemons, who believes she's an alien from outer space.
It's the latest dark comedy from the filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, who previously directed Stone and Plemons in last year's Kinds of Kindness.
Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review of Begonia.
As an admirer of the Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, it gave me no pleasure to report that his 2024 film, Kinds of Kindness, was all kinds of lousy.
A trio of stories about human cruelty, each one more wearying than the last.
You couldn't fault the actors, though.
Not Emma Stone, a brilliant Lanthimos regular who won an Oscar for her role in his film Poor Things.
And not Jesse Plemons, a versatile addition to the director's regular company.
Now Stone and Plemons have reunited in Lanthimos' wickedly funny new psychological thriller Begonia, which at times plays like a discarded fourth story from Kinds of Kindness that was expanded into its own feature.
Begonia is actually a remake of another film, Chang Joon Hwan's low-budget thriller from 2003, Save the Green Planet, which is now regarded by many as one of the most significant Korean movies of this century.
Although begonia is a bigger, more lavish production than Save the Green Planet, it does preserve many of the same plot details.
Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a part-time beekeeper who also works in a warehouse owned by a major corporation that makes drugs and pesticides.
He blames the company and its CEO, Michelle Fuller that's Emma Stone, girlbossing to the max for their role in endangering bee colonies around the world.
But Teddy's rage goes further.
He claims that Michelle is an alien from the Andromeda galaxy, bent on destroying planet Earth.
And so, with the help of his cousin Don, played by Aidan Delbus, Teddy ambushes Michelle outside her home and knocks her out.
When she comes to, she's tied up in the basement of Teddy's farmhouse and shaved bald for reasons that only her captor can explain.
Where's my hair?
Your hair has been destroyed.
You shaved off my hair?
Yes, we've shaved off your hair.
Why have you shaved off my hair?
To prevent you from contacting your ship.
My ship?
Your ship.
What ship?
Your mother's ship.
Teddy demands that Michelle take him and Don to her leader.
Michelle's response is startlingly cool and methodical.
Rather than screaming or pleading for her life, she calmly explains that she isn't an alien and that Teddy and Don would be wise to let her go.
Even when she's incapacitated, she seems unnervingly in control of the situation, and you begin to wonder fairly early on if Michelle really is from Andromeda.
Weirdly, the answer almost doesn't matter, because there's always been something otherworldly about the way Lanthimos regards his characters.
Watching one of his movies like Dogtooth or The Killing of a Sacred Deer is sort of like watching a strange behavioral experiment conducted by an extraterrestrial being.
Even so, Begonia doesn't have the staccato rhythms and bizarre non-sequiturs of most Lanthimos movies.
It was written by Will Tracy, a co-writer on the 2022 horror satire The Menu, and the dialogue has a lucidity that sucks you in.
Teddy strains to be polite with Michelle at first, but he starts to unravel as her barbed insinuating words get under his skin.
The more Michelle talks, the more she backs Teddy into a corner, exposing layers of grief trauma, bitterness and disillusionment, especially concerning politics.
Teddy has been all over the ideological spectrum alt-right leftist, Marxist but now shuns all labels, dismissing them as performative garbage.
Michelle seems to share his cynicism.
Or maybe she's just saying that to mess with him, in the same way that Lanthimos is messing with us.
Scene by scene, Begonia keeps us guessing.
Which of these two characters should we be more afraid of?
Is Teddy just another crackpot conspiracy theorist?
Or might he be onto something?
Plemons' tense, heartbreaking performance allows for both possibilities, and his psychological duet with Stone is riveting to watch.
There are also haunting grace notes from newcomer Aidan Delbus, who is autistic and is playing an autistic person Dawn, the one character here who seems completely guileless.
Like many Lanthimos movies, Begonia teems with startling tonal shifts and sudden eruptions of violence.
Yet it also feels like a more accessible object than he's made before.
More of a clever product, perhaps, than a sui generis vision.
It's a remake, after all, and a fairly faithful one at that.
Where it differs most from its source material is in the way it looks.
Where Save the Green Planet felt grotty and claustrophobic Begonia, shot by the gifted cinematographer Robbie Ryan is almost distractingly gorgeous.
The final sequence in particular has a spooky, apocalyptic grandeur that left me in a state of near awe.
Lanthimos may be something of an arthouse prankster, but even in his impish gaze, our endangered planet can still be a thing of beauty.
Justin Chang is a film critic at The New Yorker.
On Monday's show, Richard Linklater, who made the films Slacker, Dazed and Confused, The Before Trilogy and Boyhood, talks about his two new films.
Blue Moon is about lyricist Lorenz Hart.
Nouvelle Vogue is an homage to director Jean-Luc Godard and the making of his 1960 revolutionary French new wave film, Breathless.
Join us.
Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.
Sam Brigger is our managing producer.
Our senior producer today is Roberta Schorach.
Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Deanna Martinez.
For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
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This week on Consider This, unpacking some wild economic trends.
Families are having fewer kids.
How that will ripple in the global economy.
Plus the rise of private credit markets and the hidden risk they pose.
And we're breaking down the rise in health care costs tied to the government shutdown.
Listen every afternoon to Consider This on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
