Blazing Saddles Meets Young Frankenstein by Bruce G. Hallenbeck
Mel Brooks was on a roll in 1974, releasing his outrageous western satire, Blazing Saddles, and his spoof of ‘30s horror movies, Young Frankenstein. The director had two audiences in mind for both films: the genre buffs who’ll get all the jokes and the general public. Brooks kept both laughing throughout both productions.
Screenwriter and author Bruce G. Hallenbeck takes readers back to 1974, a time when a film such as Blazing Saddles could be made. The old rules had been repealed by ’74 and the new ones had not been imposed. The film’s use of N is unsettling to contemporary ears; flabbergasted “progressives” might miss Brooks’ devastating assault on the pieties of American history and the mind-warping effects of racism. Young Frankenstein, however, already stood on the thin shoulders of horror spoofs (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein) and could be made in 2025.
As plausibly depicted by Hallenbeck, Brooks was a man determined to have his way, even when he couldn’t. Warner Bros. refused to let him cast Richard Pryor in the lead role as the newly appointed sheriff in a fiercely all-white town; his drug-fired behavior made him an insurance risk, but Brooks kept him on to cowrite the screenplay. The role of Sheriff Bart couldn’t have fallen into better hands than Clevon Little, looking naïve as a newborn until getting his grip on the town and its outlaws. He’d been set up to fail by a nefarious political-financial cabal led by snidely Hedley Lamarr, played with his usual aplomb by Harvey Corman.
Nothing was off limits in Blazing Saddles, not even Brooks’ efforts to lure John Wayne into playing a parody of himself. Wayne replied politely: he liked the script, but it was “too dirty” for him.
The impetus for Young Frankenstein came from Gene Wilder, prominent after his breakout film for Brooks, The Producers. Scribbling out a scenario with a felt pen on a legal pad, Wilder presented his idea to Brooks. “You got any money on you?” Brooks demanded. He took the $57 from Wilder’s wallet as down payment. The finished screenplay had lots of fun teasing the censorship that greeted James Whale’s classic production of Frankenstein (1931).
Despite their successful collaborations, Wilder and Brooks went separate ways after 1974. Hallenbeck summarizes all known facts about Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein and gives an overview of Wilder and Brooks’ careers.
Blazing Saddles Meets Young Frankenstein is published by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.
