YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (54)

Directed by: Mel Brooks (1974)

Starring: Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn

The Pitch: Overcoming his initial reluctance, Dr. Frankenstein's grandson carries on his grandfather's work (and accepts that his name is not pronounced Fronkensteen).

Theo Sez: Hard to account for this comedy's high reputation - maybe its champions all saw it in the 70s (great decade for movies, less so for comedies) and haven't re-evaluated it since, or perhaps its admittedly fabulous visuals are inevitably diminished on video, no longer able to disguise its shortcomings in other departments. It's not so much the witlessness that's shocking - not in the age of Jim Carrey's talking buttocks, anyway - as the lack of pace, how arid and laboured it all is : a couple of inspired moments aside, it alternates between slow cumbersome patches in which obvious jokes are milked well beyond dry (even the pretty foolproof "Walk this way" gag is overdone) and long dead patches in which nothing very much happens at all ; even Wilder seems restrained, never breaking into the inspired lunacy of THE PRODUCERS or START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME. All in all, not too hard to see why the breathless spoofery of AIRPLANE! had such an impact five years later.