Word: frankenstein
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN...
Larkish Script. The bedrock of all Brooks films is frenzy; the nominal subject of Young Frankenstein-the skyhook for all the madness-is a satirical exhumation of Mary Shelley's classic. The Shelley story ought to have turned wormy by this time from virtually constant exposure. It is, however, still a powerful myth. One good measure of its resiliency is that even when Brooks is lampooning it, the story remains compelling, nearly inviolate. When Gene Wilder's Dr. Frankenstein tries to zap life into a grotesque, inanimate form, the movie goes serious despite itself. The myth is better...
...larkish script concerns a descendant of Victor Frankenstein-a level and kindly sort who is forever being ridiculed for his forebear's madness. An edict in an old will summons young Frankenstein to middle Europe, and he travels to Transylvania by train. ("Pardon me, boy," he inquires, "is this the Transylvania Station?"). He is greeted by Igor (Marty Feldman), a hunchbacked servant with a movable hump and askew eyes, and conducted to mist-shrouded Castle Frankenstein. Soon he stumbles on Victor's secret experimental notes, bound in handsome leather and stamped HOW I DID IT. "What a fruitcake...
This movie, made virtually in tandem with Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (TIME, June 10), is not quite so spectacular: it is not, like Frankenstein, in migraine-inducing 3-D, and Director-Writer Morrissey goes a little easier on the gore. As a result, the movie is actually funnier-although Morrissey is never going to be a master of restraint...
Aldiss has always written with gusto. This book is not just an exciting, macabre story. Using a verbal counterpoint -19th century literary style against the curt phrases of the 21st-the author has brought off a convincing interpretation of Frankenstein for today...