Trivia for
Young Frankenstein (1974) More at IMDbPro »

• The film was shot with many of the same props and lab equipment as the original Frankenstein (1931).
  
  
• The howling wolf sound on the ride to the castle was made by director Mel Brooks.
  
  
• The assistant property master's name, Charles Sertin, is on the third brain on the shelf.
  
  
• The clock chimes 13 times at the beginning of the film.
  
  
• The idea of Frederick's dart hitting a cat was ad-libbed on set. When Gene Wilder threw his dart off camera, director Mel Brooks quickly screamed like a cat to create the illusion.
  
  
• A couple who are talking on the train near the beginning of the film are having the same conversation in English, then in German.
  
  
• Teri Garr, who plays Inga, was called in when Madeline Kahn, whom Mel Brooks had originally wanted for the role, turned it down and asked if she could play Elizabeth instead. Mel Brooks told Garr that if she could come back the next day with a German accent, he'd like her for Inga. She looked at Mel and said, "Vell, yes, I could do zee German ackzent tomorrow - I could come back zis afternoon" and the part was hers. Garr has said that she based her accent on Cher's wigmaker whom she worked with on "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" (1971).
  
  
• The skulls that Freddy and Inga find under the castle were real skulls except for the one that was six months dead, which was hand-crafted.
  
  
• The cast and especially Mel Brooks had so much fun and were so upset when principal photography was almost completed, that Mel added scenes to continue shooting.
  
  
• The scene in which the creature contemplates throwing the little girl into the lake ("No more flowers. What shall we throw in now?"), is a homage to a scene in Frankenstein (1931). That scene was cut and not restored to the original until its video release 50 years later.
  
  
• The shot of the monster carrying Elizabeth in the woods is a subtle reference to a similar shot in Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).
  
  
• The original cut of the movie was almost twice as long as the final cut, and it was considered by all involved to be an abysmal failure. It was only after a marathon cutting session that they produced the final cut of the film, which both Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks considered to be far superior to the original product. At one point they noted that for every joke that worked, there were three that fell flat. So they went in and trimmed all the jokes that didn't work.
  
  
• Final film of Oscar Beregi Jr.
  
  
• Gene Wilder's favourite film of his own.
  
  
• Gene Wilder conceived the "Puttin' on the Ritz" scene, while Mel Brooks was resistant to it, feeling it detracted from the fidelity to Universal horror films in the rest of the film. It was only when he saw it with a howling audience that Brooks was confident about the sequence.
  
  
• When the monster is being brought back to life, the area around his eyes (and what appears to be his teeth) begin to glow. This was done with a plastic head created to look exactly like that of Peter Boyle. Some fake teeth, fake brain tissue, and a light were used to create the effect.
  
  
• Due to make-up continuity problems, certain shots in "The Blind Man" scene had to be re-shot. In the shot where The Blind Man spills soup on the Monster, the "Hand" spilling the soup actually belongs to director Mel Brooks, not Gene Hackman.
  
  
• Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman appear together in this film by virtue of the fact that their mutual agent had a deal with the movie studio.
  
  
• When they started to film the "Puttin' on the Ritz" scene, no one was sure what the creature should say. The first time out of the gate, however, Boyle came up with a strangled version of "Puiinin on da reeez!"
  
  
• The Blind Man's parting line "I was gonna make espresso" was not in the script, but was ad-libbed by Gene Hackman during shooting. Hackman was uncredited when the movie was originally released in theaters.
  
  
• The Gasthaus, or guest house at the beginning of the riot scene is Gasthaus Gruskoff, named after producer Michael Gruskoff.
  
  
• Frederick and Kemp's full names, along with the origin of Kemp's wooden arm, are revealed in a scene originally deleted from the finished film, but included as an "extra" on later DVD releases.
  
  
• The brain which Igor is sent to steal is labeled as belonging to "Hans Delbrück, scientist and saint." A real-life Hans Delbrück was a nineteenth-century German military historian and professor at the University of Berlin, notable for going beyond technical problems and linking warfare to politics and economics. His son Max Delbrück was a twentieth-century biochemist and Nobel laureate.
  
  
• Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
  
  
• Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks got into only one fight during the movie's production, but it was a big one with Mel throwing a huge temper tantrum, yelling and raging and eventually storming out of the studio. Shortly thereafter, Gene received a phone call from Mel, saying, "Who was that lunatic yelling and screaming on the set today? You should fire that bum!"
  
  
• The experiment the medical student mentions, where Darwin preserved a worm in fluid until it came to life, is mentioned in Mary Shelley's foreword to the novel "Frankenstein." The Darwin in question was Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the famous Charles Darwin.
  
  
• Leon Askin played a lawyer (reading the last will) but was cut out.
  
  
• Just like in the original Frankenstein (1931), greenish face makeup was used on the monster to make his features more prominent in the BandW film.
  
  
• Originally in the script, after Igor drops the brain jar, he was to turn to the camera and quip, "Funny thing is, I tried!"
  
  
• Director Cameo: [Mel Brooks] the voice of the original Dr. Frankenstein when Frederick sees the laboratory for the first time.
  
  
• According to Mel Brooks (in the commentary for Spaceballs (1987)) when Gene Wilder came on the cast for Blazing Saddles (1974), he requested that Mel Brooks do *his* movie idea next: resulting in this movie.
  
  
• The shifting hump on Igor's back was an ad-libbed gag of Marty Feldman's. He had surreptitiously been shifting the hump back and forth for several days when cast members finally noticed. It was then added to the script.
  
  
• Gene Wilder's performance as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein is ranked #9 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.
  
  
• Mel Brooks initially thought that the "Walk this way" gag was too corny and wanted it cut from the film. But, when he saw the audience's reaction to it one night at a screening, he decided to leave it in.
  
  
• Rock band Aerosmith took a break from a long night of recording to see "Young Frankenstein" in 1974. Steven Tyler wrote the band's hit "Walk This Way" the morning after seeing the movie, inspired by Marty Feldman's first scene, the "walk this way... this way" scene.
  
  
• Richard Haydn's last film.
  
  
• At the 1975 Golden Globe Awards, Cloris Leachman was nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy/Musical, while Madeline Kahn was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for their work in this movie. However, Madeline Kahn has more screen time than Cloris Leachman.
  
  
• The Blind Man scene includes parts where we see the monster having hot soup poured on him and getting his thumb lit on fire. To keep himself protected, Peter Boyle had a hot pad on his lap, and he held a fake thumb with alcohol on it to keep the fire burning.
  
  
• Jeff Maxwell's film debut.
  
  
• When Mel Brooks was preparing "Young Frankenstein," he found that Ken Strickfaden, who had made the elaborate electrical machinery for the lab sequences in the Universal Frankenstein films, was still alive in the Los Angeles area. He visited Strickfaden and found that Strickfaden had saved all the equipment and had it stored in his garage. Brooks made a deal to rent the equipment for his film and gave Strickfaden the screen credit he'd deserved, but hadn't gotten, for the original films.
  
  
• Movie was adapted as a Broadway musical in 2007.
  
  
• The painting behind Inspector Kemp in the village meeting hall is "The Children of Charles I" by Anthony van Dyck.
  
  
• The musical version of Young Frankenstein starring Roger Bart as "Dr. Frederick Frankenstein" and Shuler Hensley as "The Creature" opened at the Hilton Theater, New York City on November 8, 2007. It closed on January 4, 2009 after 29 previews and 485 performances.
  
  
• Cloris Leachman, on NPR's Fresh Air on June 3rd 2009, claimed that Mel Brooks told her the Blücher (as in Frau Blücher) means glue in German, hence to reason for the horse whinnies. (However, according to Snopes.com, this claim in incorrect; that is, Blücher is not German for glue.)
  
  
• Dr. Frankenstein's conversation with the shoe-shine boy at the train station where the doctor starts by asking, "Pardon me, boy," and the boy ends with, "Can I give you a shine?" is a line from the song Glenn Miller song, Chatanooga Choo Choo. Pennsylvania has of course been replaced with Transylvania.
  
  

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