Released in 1974, directed by Mel Brooks with screenplay by Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, starring Gene Wilder...etc. etc. The usual Mel Brooks film suspects with a pseudo-humorous cameo by Gene Hackman as a reclusive blind priest. This was odd to me since I've seen The Birdcage numerous times and all I can picture Gene Hackman as is an über-conservative stuck up white guy. I suppose that should make it slightly more hilarious.
Quick summary incoming!!: Gene Wilder plays Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced Fronk-en-steeeeen), a mildly prominent doctor/professor at some school. While giving some sort of a lecture about voluntary and reflexive movements (to medical students?? i learned this shit in high school!), he learns of his inheritance to his grandfather's fortune (the original Dr. Frankenstein). So, Frankenstein III travels to Transylvania (I guess? supposedly Transylvania is just a generic scary horror place where people have weird german-french-british accents), where he learns of his grandfather's work and has a life-changing moment and decides to continue his grandfather's legacy and now becomes the popularly pronounced Frankenstein. What follows are comical adventures of the Frankenstein monster and mass mobs of people with torches and pitchforks with the occasional comedic flavoring and super cheesey ending. Really?
Well, needless to say, I was a bit disappointed. I was waiting for the great lines to be repeated at family parties, but alas there were none....and then the movie ended. I think I need to watch Blazing Saddles again.
Probably my favorite Mel Brooks movie...I think it's Brooks at his most restrained (not a quality for which he's generally known); not nearly as madcap as Blazing Saddles, but the "Puttin On the Ritz" number still knocks me flat.
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