I've been on a spooky movie kick and it's been interesting to see connections.
First I watched Arsenic and Old Lace. In the movie there is a line where one of the characters points out that evil brother Johnathon looks like Boris Karlov (as Frankenstein with scars on his face). Boris Karlov was a major investor in the play that inspired the movie, but he wasn't in the movie because he and the plays producers were afraid that if the play was stripped of all of it's stars for the 8 weeks filming took, the play would tank. So in the play, the meta joke is that the evil brother Johnathon looks like Boris Karlov because he _is_ Boris Karlov.
The movie Frankenstein came out in 1931, the original play Arsenic and Old Lace opened 1941, ten years later, so the image of Boris Karlov as Frankenstein had had 10 years to permeate the public consciousness by the time the play launched. (The film version of Arsenic and Old Lace was filmed during the run of the play but the filmmakers had agreed not to release it until the play closed. It ran for longer than expected so the film wasn't released until 1944).
So next I watched Boris Karlov's Frankenstein from 1931 and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). I felt bad for the monster-- he was created and then immediately abandoned and abused. As, always, the real monster in the film is the scientist Frankenstein and the horror is how quickly a mob of frightened people becomes its own monster.
I actually liked Bride of Frankenstein better because the Monster is given agency. He wants someone to be his friend, he wants someone of his own to love. He has the most powerful and moving line in the film.
Watching both of those movies along with the sad announcement that Teri Garr passed away, inspired me to re-watch Young Frankenstein by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks. It defiantly benefits from having watched both Karlov Frankenstein movies. I also hadn't remembered that they got to use the original Frankenstein lab machines in their movie. I've always been uncomfortable with the Putting on the Ritz scene, it's always been referred to as being funny, but I realized that, for me, it's much more about Fredrick Frankenstein thinking that if he can make his monster 'perform' normality and be entertaining then he will be accepted. But this is hubris on his part, and it fails, and the movie shows it failing so, I think it supposed to be an uncomfortable scene as it sets up Young Frankenstein's later attempt to heal the monster and become fully himself. By that sacrifice they both are healed.
In the course of watching the film, I was reminded that the film features 3 female comic powerhouses: Teri Garr as lab assistant Inga, Cloris Leachman as Frau Blücher, and Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth as Fredrick Frankenstein's fiancee. They are all brilliant in their roles.
The thing I love best about Young Frankenstein is it rights the wrong of the Karlov Frankenstein movies. When Fredrick Frankenstein realizes he has created life and a dangerous 'monster' instead of turning away from his creation and letting others abuse the 'creature', he determines to love his creation into wholeness and independence and after several false starts, he gets there in the end.
