FRANKENSTEIN, YOUNG AND OLD: AN INTERVIEW WITH MEL BROOKS

FRANKENSTEIN, YOUNG AND OLD: AN INTERVIEW WITH MEL BROOKS By Kevin LaGrandeur It may seem odd to think that Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein stories (the original written in 1818 and her revision of 1834) could be converted to comedy, given their focus on the tragic downward spiral of the title character and his creature—and given the horror and fright that the story’s early twentieth-century cinematic descendants were meant to engender. But that is in fact what the film Young Frankenstein does. The writers of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, pay homage to the Frankenstein movies of the 1930’s and to Shelley’s books by making us laugh at their familiar and frightening motifs. Young Frankenstein’s slapstick satire undermines the scary nature of the creature as it was portrayed in films and by Shelley. But it also bows to the serious themes in Shelley’s books: Gene Wilder’s character, Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, cannot resist accepting the inheritance of his grandfather Victor’s secret knowledge and the discovery and glory that it might represent, even though he says at the beginning of the movie that he hates everything about its legacy. And the tortured humanity that resides in the ugly creature of Shelley’s story, which nobody recognizes, is a constant theme in Brooks’ and Wilder’s film—although Frederick, unlike Victor, realizes it and keeps trying to exhibit it to people by such ill-advised displays as the movie’s comic song and dance number, “Putting on the Ritz.” Mostly though, Brooks and Wilder want us to laugh. And in that their creation succeeds: along with Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the film Young Frankenstein has made it onto the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Funniest American Movies. (It sits at number 13 and the Abbot and Costello film sits at number 56.) One measure of its success is the amount of money it has made: after it was released in 1974, at a cost of $2.8 million, it made $86,273,333 at the box office. At today’s ticket prices, that would be the equivalent of $393,023,000 (Boxofficemojo.com).i A more important measure of the movie’s success is the critical acclaim it has garnered. In addition to its ranking near the top of the AFI’s list of funniest movies, it has won a number of awards, including the 1976 Nebula Award for the best science fiction script, the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and two Saturn Awards (1974 and 1975) for set decoration. Mel Brooks not only co-wrote the screenplay with his friend Gene Wilder, who starred as Victor Frankenstein’s grandson in the film, but he also directed the movie—which earned him an additional award: in addition to his share in those mentioned above, he won the 1976 Saturn Award for Best Director of a science fiction, fantasy, or horror film. These are part of an amazing record of awards Mr. Brooks has won over his lifetime as a director, actor, comedian, and songwriter. For his various endeavors he has won more than 25 awards; most impressively, he is one of only twelve people to have won all of the major American entertainment awards: the Oscar, the Grammy, the Emmy, and the Tony.ii In the interview below, I talk with him about how the film Young Frankenstein came to be—how it was conceived, funded, designed and filmed—and also about how it relates to the various versions of the Frankenstein story that came before. In the process Mel Brooks talks about his life, his experiences with Frankenstein, old and new, and how growing up in Brooklyn affected how he saw it all. NOTE: The interview is edited for clarity. LaGrandeur: You said in some previous interviews that, when you first heard about the idea of making Young Frankenstein, you thought it was a bad idea. I was wondering why you initially thought that. Mel Brooks: Originally I said, "Between James Whale and Hammer Films, there have already been too many Frankensteins on the screen." But Gene Wilder had this original idea. We were making Blazing Saddles. I took a 10-minute break during a fight scene, and there was Gene with his knees up and a legal pad and a pencil. He was scribbling away. I said, "What the hell are you writing?" He said, "Look." At the top of the pad, it said, "Young Frankenstein." Then he said, in one sentence, something that got me excited. He said, "It's all about a guy that changes his name, a scientist who changes his name to 'Frankenstien' because he wants nothing to do with his ancestors, and especially his greatgrandfather, Victor Frankenstein, who talked about turning dead tissue into live matter." He said, "But of course it's in his blood. He doesn't know that. When he protests, we'll see what happens." I said, "That's a good idea. That's new.” To attack the idea of making a creature from dead parts, it's a great idea. To attack it, and then to be, of course, immersed and swayed by simply the genealogy that's in him, and the blood that's in his veins. So, I liked the idea. I said, "You want me to write it?" He said, "I want you to write it with me, and I want you to direct it." I said, "Well, okay. Let's see how the script turns out. And if we like it, then we'll talk about it." LaGrandeur: It's a very brave thing for you to do, to take on such a huge and famous story like that. Did you ever have any doubts? LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 2 of 13 Mel Brooks: Well, I was a fan of the Mary Shelley book. I had read it when I was a kid, and I read it again when I was a little older, when I was in the army, actually. I was amazed at this 18-year-old girl coming up with this incredibly brilliant idea. And at how well-written it was. Amazed that she was with her husband, [Percy Bysshe] Shelley, and [Lord] Byron, somewhere in northern Italy, at a retreat somewhere on Lake Como, I think, when she wrote it. They had this contest about who could scare each other with it. She came up with the greatest story ever told. LaGrandeur: Did you ever worry about making that story funny? Mel Brooks: Never. I never worry about making anything funny. I just take the utter truth, the utter truth, and I just move an inch to the right or left of it, and I've got comedy. LaGrandeur: An interesting point. Mel Brooks: In Blazing Saddles, for instance, I took every cliché in every Western-scraping beans from a tin plate, drinking black coffee out of a tin cup--and had one of the funniest campfire scenes ever. I was a big fan of Westerns, and I knew what the clichés were, and I knew how to move them around. LaGrandeur: Do you have a favorite scene of your own in Young Frankenstein? Mel Brooks: I have so many. I have a couple of favorite scenes. One of my favorite scenes happened after a big fight with Gene Wilder. We were writing the thing, and we were talking about having the monster doing a “heel-to-toe” dance in a scene to prove that it was cognizant and understood, and could actually do things like walk properly and respond to commands. Gene took this idea to some far place by saying, "Why don't the monster and Victor do a number together? Like, 'Puttin' on the Ritz'?'" I laughed and said, "No, I think that tears it. I think that spoils it. When a thing goes too far, it becomes silly or foolish. And we’re going to lose the James Whale aspect of it.” I said, "No, I don't want to do that." We had a big fight about it. He kept insisting, and finally I said, "Okay. We'll film it, but I don't care about voting. If I don't like it, it's out." He said, "Okay. That's a deal." So we filmed it, and after I saw it, I liked it. After it played for an audience, I loved it. I think it became maybe my most favorite, or at least one of my favorite scenes. I was totally against it to begin with. LaGrandeur: That's interesting. What changed your mind? Was it Mr. Wilder's arguments? LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 3 of 13 Mel Brooks: No. The only thing that really changes my mind about anything after I make a movie is the audience. The audience laughs and grabs their belly and falls in the aisle and laughs. Then it's in the movie. I'm out to make a comedy. If there's coughing, and harrumphing, and silence in the audience, then no matter how much I love a scene, I just take it right out of the movie. LaGrandeur: So that’s how you decide to put stuff in or take it out? Mel Brooks: Well in the beginning there's a lot of work and cutting, before it even gets to an outside audience. Sometime at the end of November, 1974, I showed the first rough-cut for Young Frankenstein to some people. They were just people from the lot, all kinds of secretaries and people in various jobs: accounting, editing, shipping. I even got all the secretaries from the suits, from the big executives. It was at this little theatre on the lot at Twentieth Century Fox, about a 200-seater. I showed them this rough-cut of the film, and about twothirds of it was good and one-third was terrible. So, I made this speech after it ran. I said, "Thank you for coming. You have just seen a 200-minute failure of a movie. But,” I said, "In one month, just one month from today, I'm going to ask you all to come back. I have taken copious notes on what you liked and didn't like, and you're going to come back, and you are going to see a 90minute, big-hit success. It seems impossible, but that's show business. I'm going to prove it to you." In a month they came back, and stood up and cheered at the end of the movie. We had a lot of good stuff. We just didn't know exactly what should stay in and what should come out. LaGrandeur: That's amazing, that you could do all that in one month. Mel Brooks: Well, It wasn't just that one audience. I took the rough-cut of the movie to Pasadena, too. I had been taking it to different places and making notes each time on what the audience really hated and what the audience really loved, and what was so-so. I had four or five different screenings in that month. Edit, screen. Edit, screen. Edit, screen. That’s what I did, until finally, when those Fox employees came back to that little theatre, they saw a very artfully edited film. John Howard was our editor. This is the first time I worked with him. He had done Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That's the way he worked--I was very lucky to get him--everything but the kitchen sink: throw everything in, shoot everything, and then make your own cut, and then let the audience start helping to cut it. LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 4 of 13 LaGrandeur: That's interesting. I was going to ask whether, now that some time has passed since you made it, there was anything you would do differently. Mel Brooks: As far as I'm concerned, it's perfect. I wouldn't touch a second of it. LaGrandeur: I noticed that although the monster in your film is mute, as it is in James Whale's first Frankenstein film, at the end of Young Frankenstein the monster, who has been transformed by this sort of “mind-meld” with his maker, gives a speech that is so incredibly intelligent and beautiful, it's almost like one of Shakespeare's monologues. At that moment, your monster becomes similar to the creature in Shelley's book, who is a genius of sorts: The creature in the book picks up language and learning faster than most humans, and speaks very eloquently about the ethics of what it does. So what was behind that very eloquent speech by the monster in your movie? Mel Brooks: We were saluting the book. We were true to the book. What happens in our movie is that the monster actually receives, through brainwaves, the genius of Dr. Frankenstein. We got many good ideas from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; the foremost of them was the basic idea that such a thing as Frankenstein’s creature could exist. I think we thanked her on the screen. I'm not sure. Anyway, we based it on her book. LaGrandeur: About 20 years ago, there was an A&E documentary in which they interviewed you, and in that documentary Roger Moore, its narrator, says, "Many critics told us the best of the Frankenstein films, and perhaps the one most faithful to the novel, came from the brilliant minds of two of America's most premiere filmmakers, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder." I wonder: did you and Gene Wilder see yourselves as first and foremost trying to stay true to Shelley’s book, or to James Whale’s 1931 film interpretation of it? Mel Brooks: I think that Whale made the most beautiful movie rendering of Frankenstein. Boris Karloff's performance as the monster was incredible, and Colin Clive’s as Victor Frankenstein was too. It was a great movie, but I think we were more faithful to Shelley's book itself and to her spirit. We wanted to do that. LaGrandeur: So you and Mr. Wilder saw yourselves as trying to stay true to Shelley's book? Mel Brooks: Well, to a point. The book is crazy. The book is brilliant, but there are fits of rambling in it that are insane. But also, when it's spot on, it is the best, and a great gift, a great premise to work with. We tried to make a comedy that was faithful to both James Whale and Mary Shelley. It was difficult, but I think we succeeded. LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 5 of 13 LaGrandeur: Did you have discussions about trying to balance your references to Whale's movies and your fidelity to Shelley's story? Mel Brooks: Shelley's story provided the spirit of the thing, and the emotions, and the very genius of it. Whale’s movies provided style. We tried to stay close to Whale's timing, and his pace, and his style, and his beautiful black and white, back-lit movie. That's how we balanced them: the basic story was Mary Shelley’s. James Whale provided the model for telling the story through film. LaGrandeur: Speaking of Whale’s version of Frankenstein, I was curious about the laboratory setting you used in your film: I noticed you used Kenneth Strickfaden's wonderful electric gizmos from the early movies directed by Whale. Mel Brooks: Oh yes, Strickfaden was a sweet-as-sugar, nice guy, little old man, and he had everything [all of the props from the laboratory sets] in a garage in Santa Monica near the ocean; it was rusting a little bit. We were lucky too. He said, "Just give me a small fee." In the end I begged Fox, who finally did the picture, to give him a little more money than he asked for to rent his stuff. And we gave all of his equipment back to him. I don't know where it is now. He may have given it to his children or his grandchildren. I didn't know what the entire set would cost, but when I met with Dale Hennesy, who was the production designer, he said, "I can give you a building that looks like sweating stone." I'll never forget that. Like a castle somewhere in Edinburgh, or in Transylvania. Big, heavy stone, wet with mist, wet with thunderstorms. I said, "Perfect. That's what I need on the outside. On the inside, I need vast space, both in the laboratory and the entrance chamber." We just thought alike. He gave me some sketches, and he built me some models. I said, "Dale, it's just a little expensive. If you can cut it down by 35, 40 thousand, maybe we could do it." And he did, the great Dale Hennesy. LaGrandeur: Do you think you could have done the movie without Kenneth Strickfaden's gizmos from the laboratory setting in the original Frankenstein movies? Would the special effects of the '70s have worked instead for your movie, made as it was in black and white? Mel Brooks: I don't think so. We were very lucky to do it in black and white, not only because that worked perfectly with Strickfaden’s fantastic laboratory props, but also because of the makeup we used on the monster's face. I don't know if you've every heard of Bill Tuttle, William Tuttle. He was our makeup guy. He told me, "I'm so glad you're doing it in black and white, saluting the old LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 6 of 13 James Whale films, because if we did it in color, he would just have a bluegreen face. It would just be silly. There's just no way to give the monster that deep, rich, crazy dead-alive face [other than in black and white]." He said, "When I do it in white makeup, for black and white film, it's going to look whitish-grayish. It's going to be perfect. He was right. That was one of the reasons. And the castle was another reason. Everything worked better in black and white. As far as using special effects available in the 70’s, when Young Frankenstein was made, I don't think I would have used them. I think I would have mimicked Strickfaden's tinker toys. I would have gotten lightning, that spark between two wires going up and down. I would have done it mostly with various scary machine sounds, and thunder, and all kinds of stuff. I didn't want to do what they call "blue screen" or "green screen" effects. I don't think that would really have worked. Even the kids in the audience would have known there was something wrong. I would have scoured around to find somebody to do the laboratory toys, in imitation of Strickfaden’s props. LaGrandeur: Was it difficult to get a movie like this made? Mel Brooks: Sort of. I had made a deal with Columbia. The only thing Columbia Pictures and I disagreed on was a couple hundred thousand dollars that I needed to make it. I had made The Producers, and The Twelve Chairs; I made Blazing Saddles for Warner’s, so I knew how movies worked and what they cost. They offered me close to a million-eight ... Two hundred thousand short of two million. I said, "I think I need that two-hundred thousand. I think it's going to cost two million with the laboratory scene." We were fighting about that. Finally, Columbia said, "Okay. Let's split the difference. You need another two-hundred thousand; we need to be careful with our money and our budget. We'll give you another hundred thousand." I was going to make this, for Columbia, for one million, nine-hundred thousand. It was a pretty low budget, but the big thing about it that helped is that I didn't have one big star. Instead, I had all these people that I had sort of discovered: Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn. I really had found these people kind of on their way up. I was very lucky that they didn't cost much. Therefore, I knew for two million I could do this picture. Anyway, Columbia and I were going to make the deal. We met, Mike Gruskoff, the producer, and myself. We finished the meeting, we shook hands. Okay. We were going to make the picture. LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 7 of 13 But, as I closed the door, I shouted in, I said, "Thank you. This is going to be wonderful. It will be great working with you. By the way, I forgot to tell you. The picture is going to be in black and white." I closed the door and I walked down the hallway. Ten seconds later, a herd of thundering executives followed us, thundered down the hall, saying, "Wait! No! Come back! No! No black and white. Let's talk!" So we talked for three hours, and finally they said, "South America just got color. This is crazy. We can't do black and white." And I said, "No." They said, "Okay. Here. You can open it in America and Canada, and a few territories like France. You can do that in black and white. We'll give you color film, and you'll diffuse it into grey, black, and white. But you've got to give us new territories, like South America and stuff like that, that we must have in color." I said, "No. Absolutely not." I said, "The film has to be black and white." Finally, they said, "Let's talk tomorrow." That night, Mike Gruskoff called Laddie [Alan Ladd Jr.] and told them where we were on the deal, and what was happening. I think Laddie had just taken over Fox. Laddie loved it and said, "It should be in black and white, and it should have another couple hundred ... It should not be one-nine [$1.9 million]. It should be something like two-two, or two-four," and that he would get that money for us, and that he wanted it to be one of his first Fox pictures. Gruskoff went back to Columbia the next day--I wasn't with him--and said, "Black and white film and we upped it to two million." They said, "Absolutely not. We're not going to do it in black and white. We want to save most of the world for color." So the next day I moved to Fox and we started working, Gene and I, on the script. LaGrandeur: What about casting? Mel Brooks: We were very lucky regarding casting. Why? I'll tell you why. There was a guy called Mike Medavoy, who eventually ran TriStar Films. Mike Medavoy at that time was an agent, like Laddie had been. He handled a couple of people, and he was Gene Wilder's agent. So of course Gene told him that we were working on this film together. Gene said, "Mel wants Marty Feldman. And I want Marty Feldman." Medavoy said, "Well, through our company in England, we have Marty Feldman. So it's up to Marty Feldman. If he wants to do it, we can deliver him." Then he said, "What about the monster?" Medavoy said, "Let me show it to Peter Boyle, who is the biggest guy and the most talented guy we've LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 8 of 13 got." They showed it to Peter Boyle, and Gene found Teri Garr: I don’t know where he found her. I loved Madeline Kahn for Elizabeth, the society fiancée. LaGrandeur: I've always wondered why you chose Peter Boyle for the role of the monster. He was so handsome. His features were quite pleasing and almost delicate, especially compared to Boris Karloff’s. Mel Brooks: Because of his size. He was big, and we had seen Joe Medavoy, so we knew he was a fabulous actor. We didn't have to audition these people. We gave them the parts. I didn't have Marty Feldman read for me. I knew how talented he was. He worked for Larry Gelbart, who produced and was the head writer of the Marty Feldman Comedy Machine somewhere in London. I never had to ask Gene to read anything, ever, in my life. He was a friend of mine and I knew how talented he was. There's another good story [about how Dustin Hoffman almost played the Inspector Kemp character in Young Frankenstein]. Ready? LaGrandeur: Yep. I'm ready. Mel Brooks: I lived on 11th Street at the time, in the Village. Further up on 11th Street, closer to 5th, Dustin Hoffman lived with his first wife. I had seen him in Death of a Salesman, on television. He was a fantastic. I had also seen him somewhere off-Broadway one night, doing a crazy German accent. He was terrific. [While casting for The Producers] I met with him, and I gave him the script and I said, "Dustin, read Franz Liebkind." He's the playwright character in The Producers who comes up with Springtime for Hitler. I always had Dustin in mind for the part. I figure if he had done that, I probably would have used Dustin as Inspector Kemp, in Young Frankenstein. He was a natural. He could be a crazy German. But one night, [before the play got going] there was Dustin throwing pebbles against my window, like he was Cyrano or something and I was Roxane. I opened the window. I said, "It's two in the morning. What are you, crazy?" He said, "You won't believe this. I have to fly to California to audition for the part of Benjamin opposite your wife in The Graduate." I said, "Go, go, go. You're a mutt. You'll never get it. You're the funniest-looking guy, and once they see you on film, I'll get you back for The Producers." So he went to Hollywood, and he called me two days later, and he said, "I got the part." But I got lucky, because I found Kenny Mars, who came to audition for the part of Franz Liebkind. LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 9 of 13 So, because of Dustin's “betraying” me [laughter], I got Kenny Mars, and once I got him, I never let him go. I immediately gave him the wooden arm that Lionel Atwell had in James Whale’s Frankenstein. Kenny Mars went from The Producers right into Young Frankenstein. I didn't have to audition him. I knew how good he was. That's the Kenny Mars story for Inspector Kemp. It's a convoluted, crazy story, but that’s one of the miracles of casting. LaGrandeur: Regarding Young Frankenstein, I've heard you mention before, elsewhere, this fascinating idea you have that Frankenstein, at bottom, is a story about womb envy. Mel Brooks: I said, "This great scientist probably envied women who made life, and men couldn't make life. So he decided to make life." But that's my own theory. It may be all wet. Instead of penis envy, it's womb envy. From the womb comes life. LaGrandeur: What was your first encounter with the story of Frankenstein? Mel Brooks: Okay. It's 1931. James Whale makes a movie, and Universal releases it. It plays at the RKO Republic [Theater]. It's called Frankenstein. There were no restrictions on kids in Brooklyn…you can't see this; you can't see that. We had no ratings. My brother Lenny took me to the movie. He is about six years older than I am. I'm five; he's about 12. We go in and watch it, and I'm clutching Lenny. I'm ruining his jacket. I'm just, "Yikes! Holy s**t I hope this guy doesn't look at me again." You know, the Boris Karloff look with the slit eyes and the slow turn of his head ... I was scared s*****ss. I really ... It was terrifying. But I loved it. Somehow, I was only five, but I knew this was a beautiful, strange epiphany of some kind for me. I got home. We saw it in July, so it was hot in Brooklyn. We lived on the fifth floor, and the tar roof was melting; it was a really hot night. My brother Bernie was across the room, and my cot was right next to the fire escape. That was pretty good most of the time, because it was by the open window, and I got some breezes at night. Well, I told my mother, Kitty Kaminski ... after seeing Frankenstein that night, "Mom, close the window." She said, "What are you, crazy? It's a hundred degrees out there. What do you mean, close the window? You'll die. You and Bernie, you will die." I said, "No, you have to close the window, because Frankenstein (we called the monster Frankenstein. Everybody called the monster Frankenstein), Frankenstein is going to come up the fire escape. He's going to come in the window. He's going to bite me and eat me. He's going to kill me." My mother was very smart, really smart. She took her time. She said, "Look, I'll come up and sit by the window. I'll watch through the LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 10 of 13 sashes by the window. Don't worry. You can sleep with the window open." She said, "But let's examine this. Where is Frankenstein? Where does he live?" I said, "I don't know." She said, "Well, I know. He lives in Transylvania, which is very far away. So he would have to get money to buy a railway ticket to a seaport. He has to go to Hamburg. He has to go to Bremen. It's a long ride and a lot of money, just to get to the seaport, to get a boat. We're in America, and we're very far from there.” "Okay,” she said, “so let's say he gets the money and he buys a ticket. He gets on a boat, and it takes him a long time to get here. When he gets to America, he doesn't know which subway to take. There's the BMT, there's the IRT, the Independent ... He doesn't know his way around New York. Let's say he gets lucky, and he finds Brooklyn, and he finds Williamsburg, and he finds 365 South 3rd Street. When he goes up our fire escape to the first window below us; that window is open, too. He's going to eat everybody there. He's going to be happy. He isn't going to climb up to the fifth floor. He's going to eat everybody on the first floor." So I said, "Okay, mom. Close the window." She won. Her logic won me over. My mother: her husband, my father, died when I was only two. She raised four boys. My brother Irving was 12, and Lenny was seven or eight, and Bernie was six, and I was two. She was left with these four boys. We had a great aunt Sadie who gave half her salary to my mother. My grandmother lived across the hall, and she helped us. Everybody helped us. We lived in this 14 or 16 dollar a month apartment ... Happy to be there, happy to have family. I was five. I had no idea we were poor. I don't think my brothers knew we were poor either. We had enough to eat, and we played ball, and went to school, and had friends. We were never, "Woe is me, we live in poverty.” We liked franks and beans. LaGrandeur: That's a great story about your first encounter with Frankenstein. Mel Brooks: It's a great story, isn't it? It's true. LaGrandeur: I think that's my favorite story so far. Mel Brooks: Yeah. I never forgot ... From five years old to, I don't know, my 30’s. A long time, it stuck with me. LaGrandeur: I think you did the voice of a cat in Young Frankenstein, right: a screeching cat in the background of one scene? LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 11 of 13 Mel Brooks: I did the cat, who got hit with one of the darts [thrown by one of the characters during a dialogue]. Nobody could do the cat like me [Brooks screeches very convincingly like an angry cat]. LaGrandeur: I was wondering, if Mary Shelley were here right now, and you could say anything you wanted to about your movie or her book, what would you say to her? Mel Brooks: I'd probably say, "Miss Wollstonecraft, you're a genius, and whatever money Fox gives me, you're in for a third. It's a third for Gene [Wilder], a third for me, and a third for you." I would hug her, and kiss her, and tell her what an inspired story she wrote and what a genius she was, to write something so imaginative and creative and profound, at such an early age. I would tell her how grateful we all are for her genius, her gift. That's what I would have said. But I would have let her in for a third of the money, too. LaGrandeur: I've always been fascinated by your conversion of your movies to musicals on Broadway. You did the same thing with Young Frankenstein. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how that came about. Mel Brooks: I was between and betwixt. The Producers was such a big success and so naturally became a candidate for something more. And I also thought maybe Blazing Saddles might work as a play, so I was caught between doing something with Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein. I thought that Frankenstein itself was operatic, was big, big stuff, and it had to do with a great father and son story. I feel that Dr. Frankenstein and the monster really are father and son. I said, "It's a great, big emotional story and a lot of it could be very funny with the right guy playing Igor." I thought it would work. Actually, between you and me, I'm doing it. I'm taking the musical and bringing it to London this coming fall ... This coming late winter or fall. [Note: it is in fact opening at the West End Theatre in Autumn 2017.] LaGrandeur: You're going to revive it. Mel Brooks: I'm going to revive it, yeah. It ran for over a year on Broadway, but it should have run for longer. I just think ... I got some calls from some London theaters wanting it, so I asked Susan Stroman [director of the Broadway version of The Producers], who is a genius of a woman like Mary Shelley, if she would stage it. I would actually direct the comedy, and together we would find a great English cast, and we would have some fun. I love it so much. It will be a pleasure to see it again on the stage, and in London. It never played on the London stage. LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 12 of 13 When I do the musical version of Young Frankenstein on stage there, and when we get to the part in the laboratory scene where Victor throws the third switch on the machine to that enlivens the monster, I'm going to have the theater explode with some sort of special effect. Not just on the stage, but in the audience, too, when Victor says, "Damn your eye. Throw it, I say. Now the third switch. Throw it ..." The third switch is a very important moment in the creation of the monster. I'm going to have the effect of papier-mache bits, exploding all over the theater, behind the people in the audience, on top of them. What will fall on them are little pieces of confetti that look like parts of the ceiling plaster, giving the effect the building has come apart. It might scare the hell out of them. Maybe I'd better think twice about that. LaGrandeur: One final question: you yourself, I know, are a musician. You played the drums, and the piano, up in the Borscht Belt. So is that why you played a pretty big part in doing the score for Young Frankenstein? Mel Brooks: i Oh, yeah. I wrote every song, music and lyrics. About 16, 17 songs in Young Frankenstein, and I wrote them all. Some of them are really good, and some of them could be improved. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?id=melbrooks.htm ii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_won_Academy,_Emmy,_Gram my,_and_Tony_Awards LaGrandeur, Mel Brooks Interview Page 13 of 13