Fresh Air - The Making Of ‘Young Frankenstein’

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Mel Brooks’s classic 1974 movie Young Frankenstein parodies the iconic Frankenstein movies of the 1930s. This Halloween, we’re featuring our interviews with director Mel Brooks and stars Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr and Cloris Leachman. And film critic Justin Chang reviews the new film Bugonia.Follow Fresh Air on instagram @nprfreshair, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter for gems from the Fresh Air archive, staff recommendations, and a peek behind the scenes. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from heavyweight. Maybe you've laid awake and imagined how it could have been, how it might be, but the moment to act was never right. Well, the moment is here, and the podcast making it happen is Heavyweight with Jonathan Goldstein, available wherever you get podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. and Cooley. In 1974, Mel Brooks directed in Co. Roe one of the greatest film genre parodies in movie history. Actually, two of them. Blazing Saddles, his Western parody, came out in February of that year, and in December Young Frankenstein premiered, brilliantly lampooning and celebrating horror movies in general

and James Wales 1930s Frankenstein movies in particular. Because until December, it's still technically the 50th anniversary year of that monster movie comedy, and because today is Halloween, we decided it would be a Halloween treat to devote to today's show to Young Frankenstein. Before that film, writer-director Mel Brooks already had cast Gene Wilder in two of his best comedies, the producers, and Blazing Saddles. While filming that latter movie with Brooks, Gene Wilder started sketching on an idea for a movie of his own. It was a comic version of Frankenstein and the bride of Frankenstein,

conceived to have him play the starring role as the grandson of mad scientist Victor Frankenstein. Wilder asked Brooks to co-write and direct it, and they began work on it immediately. Young Frankenstein was shot in black and white, and Brooks was so faithful to the pace and look of Wales' original films, he even tracked down and used the original lab equipment from the Frankenstein movies. He also assembled an astounding cast in support of Gene Wilder. Two previous Oscar winners, Cloris Leachman and Gene Hackman, eagerly accepted minor roles. and also in the cast were Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Terry Gar, and Marty Feldman. In an early scene, Wilder, as the scientist's grandson, is met at the Transylvania train station by his future lab assistant, played by Feldman.

Dr. Frankenstein. Frankenstein. You're putting me on. No, it's pronounced Frankenstein. Do you also say, Froderick? No, Frederick. Well, why isn't it Froderick Frankenstein? It isn't, it's Frederick Frankenstein.

I see. You must be Igor. No, it's pronounced I gore. But they told me it was Igor. Well, they were wrong then, weren't they? On today's show, we'll listen to archive interviews featuring Gene Wilder, Terry Gar, Chloris Leachman, Peter Boyle, and Mel Brooks himself. We'll start with Gene Wilder, who spoke with Terry Gross in 2005.

He recalled how he and Mel began collaborating on Young Frankenstein. I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written, and then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay. But we need a villain, or we need whatever it was, and we'd talk a little bit of and then he'd go away and I would write all the next day and he'd come and look at it and then one day

when he read the pages I had written about Dr. Frankenstein and the creature sing and dance to put in on the writs he said

are you crazy this is frivolous you're just being frivolous well my temperature rose and after 20 minutes or so of arguing my color went from red to I think blue or purple I started screaming

and then all of a sudden he said okay it's in and I said well why did you put me through this and he said I wasn't sure if it was right and I thought if you didn't argue for it then it was wrong and if you did it was right so you convinced me well this is such a classic scene

I mean you as Dr. Frankenstein are presenting in a theater your creation you know the Frankenstein monster played by Peter Boyle and you're both in top hat and tails you introduce him then you sing a duet of putting on the writs

and you know do a little soft shoe and it's really it's really such a wonderful scene. So how did you come up with an excuse to do it, with the plot point to get in the production number? Because we had to convince the scientific members of Transylvania that with the procedure I was using on the creature, he could be taught to be a civilized human being.

what I called a man about town and it was for their sake that I was doing it and I just thought of the funniest way of doing it that's all but instead of a monster who's going to kill their children it was someone who could sing and dance well I think we have no choice here but to listen to you and Peter Boyle

doing putting on the ritz from the soundtrack of young Frankenstein ladies and gentlemen up until now you've seen the creature perform the simple mechanics of motor activity, but for what you are about to see next, we must enter, quietly, into the realm of genius. Ladies and gentlemen, may don't, monsieur, domen and heron, from what was once an inarticulate mass of lifeless tissues, may I now present a cultured, sophisticated, mann, about town. Hit it!

If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, why don't you go where fashion sits? Different types who wear a day coat pants with stripes or cut away coat perfect fits. Inamese! Dressed up like a million dollar trooper. Try and mighty hard to look like Gary Cooper. Cooper! Come let's mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks or rumborellers in their midst. Please!

Please! Jean Wilder, you came up with a premise. Jean Wilder, you came up with the premise. for Young Frankenstein, you officially share credits with Milbrook shares credit with you for the screenplay and the screen story. What gave you the idea of writing

Young Frankenstein? Did you love the Frankenstein movie? Well, at the time, I didn't know why. But I know now that when I was a little boy, I was scared to death of the

Frankenstein films, actually, because there were four of them in particular that influenced me and in all these years later I wanted it to come out with a happy ending and I think it was my fear of the Frankenstein movies when I was eight and nine and ten years old

that made me want to write that story that I was a young doctor or dental hygienist and found out that my great-grandfather Beaufort von Frankenstein left me the whole estate that was all I had in mind at the time

and then my agent at the time Mike Medivoy before he became a movie mogul called me up and said how about a movie with you and Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman and I said well what makes you think of that he said because I now handle you and Peter

and Marty and I said I said, well, as it happens, I do have something. Well, send it to me right now. I said, no, I want to work on it a little bit. And that night, I wrote two more pages. The Transylvania Station scene, almost verbatim, the way it is in the film.

And then I sent it off to him. And he said, I think I can sell this. And maybe we can get Mel to direct. And I said, I don't think he's going to direct something he didn't conceive of. And Mel, you have to understand this important point. He had done the producers for $50,000 over two years, and he didn't make a penny from it.

Then he did the 12 chairs, $50,000 for two more years and didn't make a penny from it. That's four years of work. And then they offered him quite a bit of money to direct young Frankenstein. and he took it. He called me first. He said, what are you getting me into?

I said, nothing you don't want to get into. He said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The next day, I got a call saying Mel's going to do it. There's quite a few really classic jokes in young Frankenstein. One of them, and this seems like it's probably the oldest joke in the world, and I'm not sure.

Oh, dear. I think you know the walk-the-way joke. why don't you describe how it happens in the movie and tell me if it's something that you and Brooks came up with or whether this joke has a long previous life because it seems like I don't know I ever heard it before the movie but it seems like it should have been around forever

do you know what I mean? I had never heard of it before and while we were filming outdoors on location Mel says to Marty Feldman who's playing the doctor's assistant your assistant yeah or Igor he says

bend over and say to Gene walk this way and then crouch down and walk away and I said Mel what does that mean

I'll tell you later I'll tell you later just do it for now and so I took the cane and I followed Marty after the camera started rolling and I walked this funny walk and everyone laughed afterwards

and I said now will you tell me what it means he says a man has a terrible case of hemorrhoids. He goes into a drug store and he says, have you got some talcum powder for me? I've got terrible hemorrhoids. And the pharmacist says, walk this way. And he says, if I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the talcum powder. And I said, where did that come from? He says, it's an old vaudeville routine. It's years

old. But I had never heard of it before. But it worked. and oh another another real classic one when you get to the when you get to the castle um um there's these large

um yeah door large like brass door knockers with knobs with knobs on them and as as you're approaching the door you lift um Terry Gar

yeah it's right you lift Terry Gar out of the wagon that you've arrived in And your head is kind of buried in her chest as Igor knocks on the door and you say, No, you tell it, you tell it. Well, he knocks in the door and just when Terry's breast is brushed up against my face, I look and see the knockers, and I say, what knockers? And she says, thank you, doctor.

Now, how did you guys come up with that one? It also sounds like, this is a classic. No, that's Mel. That's Mel. That wasn't written. He just said, when you lift her off the wagon like that, look at the knockers and say, what knockers? Well, I thought it was very funny at the time,

but that wasn't written. That was just improvised. It wasn't improvised. He just said, say what knockers? And it worked. What knockers? Thank you, Doctor. Now, I'm thinking you and Mel Brooks, you're both Jewish,

but you're from very different parts of the United States and probably had different experiences growing up because he's very East Coast, very New York, very Borsh Belt. And you grew up, was it Milwaukee? Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Yeah, so, I mean, didn't have the Borsh Belt. No, no, no. Probably didn't know vaudeville as well as he did?

No, and don't say as well. I didn't know it at all. I've read about a few things, but that's... all. So what were some of the points of commonality and difference between the two of you and your sense of theater and showbiz? Well, when I was still

in school, and I saw your show of shows, which was my favorite television show with Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks was one of the writers. At first, he started out as a low man on the totem pole until he advanced to a head writer.

but I had a feeling for what he had written. I wasn't sure if I was right. And then when I met him, there was a closeness because I loved that kind of humor, his kind of humor. It wasn't any part of my life in my humor, but I just appreciated it.

There was an affinity there somewhere. And in so many ways we're not at all alike, and in some ways we're very much alike. when people, especially from France, would ask me to talk about so they could write about New York Jewish humor. I'd say, I don't know anything about New York Jewish humor.

I know who Zeromastel was, and I know Mel Brooks, but that's about all I could tell you about New York Jewish humor. And I certainly didn't have New York Jewish humor, but I was in three Mel Brooks films. so people thought I was a connoisseur of New York Jewish humor. My humor was quite different.

Mine was Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother and the world's greatest lover and wanted honeymoon, the woman in red, see no evil, hear no evil, but his was much broader, and I think much funnier too. Jane Wilder, speaking with Terry Gross in 2005. He died in 2016. After a break, another young Frankenstein star and standout, Terry Gar, as the doctor's very smitten and sexy lab assistant. This is fresh air.

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It's self-help for smart people. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Next up in our young Frankenstein appreciation is Terry Gar, who was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting actress work in Tootsie. Earlier in her career, she had danced in nine Elvis Presley movies and made her acting screen debut opposite Gene Hackman in the conversation. In Young Frankenstein, she played Inga, the assistant and girlfriend to Gene Wilder's mad scientist.

In this scene from Young Frankenstein, the doctor's fiancé, Elizabeth, has been escorted to the castle by his assistant, Igor, where she meets the doctor's other lab assistant, the beautiful Inga. Madeline Kahn plays Elizabeth Marty Feldman plays Igor and Terry Gar plays Inga I'd like you to meet my assistants

Inga and Igor How do you do? How do you do? This is my financier Elizabeth Oh, I'm so happy to meet you at last Finansei Excuse me, darling What is it exactly that you do do

Well I assist Dr. Frankenstein in the laboratory. We have intellectual discussions, aren't we? As a matter of fact, we were just having one as you were driving on... But I... What? Uh, Igor, would you give me a hand with the bags? Certainly.

You take the blonde, and I'll take the one in the tavern. Oh. Terry Gross spoke with Terry Gar in 2005. Well, let me ask you about another movie you were in, and that is Young Frankenstein, or Frankenstein. Frogenstein, yeah. Yes, directed by Mel Brooks. How did you get to work with him?

Well, there was rumors going around town that there was a big movie being cast, and there was lots of girls going up for this audition, and I got my agent to get me in on it, you know, 500 girls. When I went there, Mel Brooks said, we're casting for the part of the fiancé, the financier, he called it. But I want Madeline Cond do. do it. I just wanted you to know. But she doesn't want to do it because she doesn't want to do a

comedy. But I'm auditioning all these girls. So I went in and I got a call back and call back. And I was very excited that I even got a called back. Finally one day I got a call back and he said Madeline has decided to do this part. But if you can come back tomorrow, I'll give you a chance to audition for the part of Inga, the lab assistant, but you have to have a German accent. Can you come? And it's like 24 hours to get a German accent together. And I'll have a German accent together. And I did because I copied Cher's wig maker who had a German accent. You were working

on the Sunni and Cher show at the time. Yes, I was working on the Sunny and Cher show at the time and Seva's Renata, Vista Vakes. Did you learn things about comic timing, working with Mel Brooks on Young Frankenstein? Well, I don't think you can learn comic timing. I think

I must have innately grown up with, you know, my mother and father from Vaudeville and stuff and lots of jokes around the house, but I had been working on Sunny and Cher Show as a dancer and also in these horrible comedy sketches. And I sort of had learned comic timing then. Also, I was an incredible fan of Mel Brooks, the 2,000-year-old man. I had listened to those records hundreds of times as a kid and memorized them and did them over and over again. So I sort of knew his rhythm. But he is one of God's

gift to this planet. Mel Brooks is just the funniest man in the world. He is really funny. What did he call you, a shix a goddess? goddess, my long, my long-wasted shiks of goddess. No, and then he called Peter Boyle and I, come here, Trafe. We were both trai. I don't know what it means exactly. And then at one point, not kosher. I said, well, Mel, you're so wonderful. I wish I was Jewish. You're Jewish. You are Jewish by injection. I don't know what he meant, but, okay. Can we talk about your parents a little bit. Please. Your mother, as you mentioned, was a rock hat. She was, you say she had wonderful legs. She did what hosiery ads to show off her legs? Yeah, she called herself Legs Lind.

And then she also was like a wardrobe person for several TV shows? Yeah, I think a lot of dancers go into wardrobe afterwards. I don't know why that happens, but it's true. And she became a costume or in L.A. And my father died when I was 11, and he was in Vodville, and they met in a Broadway show my parents. And then he came out to Hollywood to be in movies, and that didn't pan out, and he became very ill. And he passed away. So my mother had to support three kids, you know, by her wits. So she went and got a job in the studios as a costumer. In fact, she was a customer on Young Frankenstein before I even got the job. And she told, don't tell anyone I'm your mother. I said, what is this about? It's so weird. Anyway, I learned. Why didn't she want

anyone to know? I do not know to this day. Was it for her sake or your sake? I don't know, but finally I told Mel, I said, you know that lady over there? That's my mom. He was so great, because he's just a great guy, and he'll bring her over here. He was wonderful.

Terry Gar, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. Terry Gar died last year. After a break, we'll hear from three more young Frankenstein alumni, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman, and Mel Brooks. And Justin Chang reviews the new film, Bagonia. David B. and Cooley, and this is fresh air.

through this complicated country. We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails, to meet people, hear their stories, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature. Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts. This week on Consider This, Unpacking some wild economic trends. Families are having fewer kids, how that will ripple in the global economy. Plus, the rise of private credit markets and the hidden risk they pose, and we're breaking down the rise in health care costs tied to the government

shutdown. Listen every afternoon to you consider this on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Believe in a free press, us too. Now's the moment to show it. The NPR shop is back with the logo T that started it all and new gear that turns support into a statement. Every purchase this October helps NPR support local journalism across the country. Be a part of the movement at shop npr.org. On today's Halloween show, we're saluting young Frankenstein, the Mel Brooks Gene Wilder monster movie comedy that is celebrating its golden anniversary. Next up is Peter Boyle.

Today, Boyle is best known for his comedy work on television as Ray's grumbling father on the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. But by the time he agreed to play the creature in Young Frankenstein, Boyle was a dramatic character actor with roles in taxi driver, the candidate, and Joe. Terry Gross spoke with Peter Boyle in 1988. How did you get the part of The Monster? Gee, I forget how I got it. I knew Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman, and I knew Mel, and there was a conversation, and they wanted to do a spoof on Frankenstein, and it was decided, you know, I was best for the monster. Marty was best

for Igor and blah, blah, blah, blah, like that. And Gene Wilder wrote the original script and then he and Mel rewrote it and it became a movie. It just happened. So did you go back and watch the original study Boris Quar? I didn't have to because I had seen the original

when I was about 12 years old in an era before television where there was a movie in downtown Philadelphia. that used to show old movies and a friend of mine went down to and I went down to see

the original Frankenstein and it scared me and it made such a strong impression on me that I really didn't have to go back and do research because I patterned my performance on Karloff and made, you know,

and did it a certain way and I wanted to make it like there was somebody inside the monster. Did you remember the monster's grunts? Which of course you had to do. Yes, of course. Yes.

The makeup is actually very funny for the film, because you could see where the makeup is. Well, you know, Young Frankenstein really sort of spoofed the early Frankenstein movies, which were actually the first, among the first sound movies ever made. They were made in 1931, and the lighting and the makeup was very much in the style of the silent movies. It hadn't gotten that sophisticated. So some of the makeup was you were aware that it was makeup. That was

somewhat intentional. One of the highlights, I think, of young Frankenstein is when Gene Wilder, who plays Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist, is showing off you, his monster, his creation, to a big audience of scientists.

And then as he's showing you off, you do a duet with him, Of putting on the writs. Yes. In a full top hat, white tie and tails. And shoes that are elevated, have soles that are eight inches thick. You know, because, you know, that's the part I remember.

And I had to tap dance in those. If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, why don't you go where fashion sits? Remember me? Terry Gross spoke with Peter Boyle in 1988. He died in 2006. And now another of that film's scene-stealing supporting players, Cloris Leachman, who had won an Oscar years earlier for her supporting dramatic work on The Last Picture Show.

She played Frau Bleacher, a longtime resident of the Transylvania Castle, a woman so scary, horses would react in fear whenever they heard her name. Steady. How do you do? I am Dr. Frankenstein. This is my assistant, Inga. May I present Frau Blucher? I wonder what's got into them.

Your rooms have been prepared, Herr, Doctor. If you will follow me. Igor, would you bring the bags as soon? as you're finished, please. Yes, master. After you, Frableacher? Terry Gross spoke with Chloris Leachman

in 2009. You've made, what, two or three movies with Mel Brooks. The first was Young Frankenstein, in which you played Fraublecher. Blucher. Just, I want to play a scene from this,

so just to set it up. Jean Wilder plays Dr. Frederick Frankenstein. who is the... Frankenstein. Frankenstein. Frankenstein. Frankenstone. And he's the grandson

of the famous mad scientist who created the monster. He was my boyfriend. Then he learns he's inherited the Frankenstein estate. So he goes to the mansion in Transylvania. And your character, Fraublocher, is one of the servants there.

And she was in love with the mad scientist. And in this scene, Gene Wilder, the young Dr. Frankenstein, goes to the lab. with his two assistants, where he finds you releasing the monster from his restraints. Here's the scene. Frau Blucher! Stop! Don't come closer.

What are you doing? I'm going to set him free! No? No, you mustn't? Yes! Are you insane? He'll kill you. No, I vote.

God disband. He is as gentle as a lad. Stand back. Stand back to the love of God. He has a rotten brain. It's not rotten. It's a good brain. It's rotten, I tell you.

Rotten. It's now on the otten ray. I'm not afraid. I know what he likes. That music. Yes. It's in your blood. It's in the blood of all Frankensteins.

It raises the soul when words are useless. Your grandfather used to play into the creature he was making. Then it was you all the time. Yes. You played that music in the middle of the night. Yes! To get us into the laboratory. That was your cigar smoldering in the ashtray.

Yes! And it was you who left my grandfather's book out for me to find. Yes. So that I would... Yes! Then you and Victor were... Yes! Yes! Say it! Help us! My boyfriend!

That's my guess, Cloris Leachman, with Gene Wilder. Can you believe it's the same one who played... on Raymond. I love Raymond. Oh, Peter Boyle, who plays The Monster. Yeah. Isn't it remarkable to be the same person who's doing those very divergent roles? Oh, yeah. He was a great actor.

He was a great actor. Well, how did you figure out how to play Frau Bruecher? Blucher. Blucher. I didn't know. I had a wonderful hairdo by Mary, the head of the hair department, and a 20th in a wonderful costume.

They made it fit me perfectly and it wonderfully designed. and that's all I knew and I was made up and I'd go on the set and I don't have any idea how to be Fral Bruecker

or I have any German accent I'd never done one before so all the time when they were shooting I kept saying do you know a German accent hello excuse me do you know a German accent to everybody

and about three people there thought they maybe they didn't know for sure they tried and I think one of them was Melbrook's mother I think she helped me the most Was she from Germany? I don't know anything.

When I first came out the door and I say, I am Frau Blucher. And I think it said with such measurement, I was so careful to try to do it right. That's why it's so slow. Otherwise, I'd say, I am Fraud Blucher. But I said, I am Frau Blucher. The running gag in young Frankenstein is whenever anybody says, Fraublecher, the horse is winnie? Mel told me a few years ago that Bluquer meant glue. I'm not sure that's true, but it sure is funny.

So it's like they're threatening the horses with the blue factory. So what did you learn about comedy working with Mel Brooks? I'll tell you one thing. I was going up the steps. With Jean and the other two, remember in the castle I'm going to show them around, and I had a candelabra with the candles not lit, and I'd turn, I say, stay close to the candles, the staircase can be treacherous. And then Mel came up to me, climbed up the steps, and whispered in my ear, and it was a line reading,

and here it is, stay close to the candles, the staircase can be treacherous. which means we've already lost a couple of people. Clarice Leachman speaking to Terry Gross in 2009. She died in 2021. Coming up to complete our Halloween Day tribute, the director and co-writer of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks. This is Fresh Air. On the ThruLine podcast from NPR,

how survivors of the Bosnian genocide got their day in court. How do you even go about finding thousands of victims and establishing who they were and what happened to them. Listen to ThruLine in the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. We talk about how the government isn't working, but what about when it does? I have to say, I renewed my passport for the first time online, and it was awesome. I am so glad to hear that. Ideas about restoring trust and democracy by making systems just work better.

Listen to the TED Radio Hour on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Support for NPR and the following message come from the estate of Joan B. Kroc, whose bequest serves as an enduring investment in the future of public radio and seeks to help NPR be the model for high-quality journalism in the 21st century. By the time he directed and co-wrote young friends, Mel Brooks already had written for TV's Your Show of Shows and Cesar's Hour, recorded hit comedy records in which Carl Reiner interviewed him as the 2000-year-old man, co-created the TV series Get Smart, and directed such movies as the producers,

the 12 chairs, and Blazing Saddles. I spoke with Mel Brooks in 2013 and offered the opinion that you couldn't create a great parody of something unless you both understood and enjoyed the thing you were lampooning. I loved Westerns as a little kid, and I loved horror films. And I had fun with them, but I also saluted the glory of the Western and the glory of James Wales, you know, Frankenstein and Dracula. And we, you know, what does a little kid in Brooklyn have when it comes to art? It ain't much, but it's those movies that you got in.

And we didn't have any money. I was the baby boy of four, altogether with four brothers. My mother lost her husband. I lost my father. I was only two, and he died of tuberculosis. And we were really, you know, poor. I mean, dead poor. And I remember my mother gave me three bottles.

I wanted desperately to see a Ken Maynard Western. I mean, desperately. And you get two other pictures with it. You get three pictures for a dime. She gave me nine cents. I mean, she gave me three bottles, which three cents on each deposit bottle at Mr. Chas' grocery store.

I had nine cents. I needed another penny. And I said, Mom, I need another penny to get into the movies. I must have been about, you know, seven or eight. And she said, I don't have it. So she went, she knocked on Mrs. Miller's door. Mrs. Miller, we don't have any cash in the house, going to have a penny.

So I cherish those movies because they really lifted my spirits and are indelibly engraved in my brain as important steps in my world education. And what about, say, Alfred Hitchcock, whom you lampooned in high anxiety? Those would have come a little later for you, but you clearly loved those too. I always thought, you know, that Alfred Hitchcock was the very best director who ever directed films. And when I was doing, I had the idea for high anxiety. I wrote him a letter saying basically, Dear Mr. Hitchcock, you know, I do genre parodies. And I, in my estimation, you are a genre.

And that you're just amazing. And I would like to do a movie dedicated to you and based on. on your style and your work. And he said, he called me, and he said, I loved, I love blazing saddles. I think you're a very talented guy, and I come to my office. I came to his office at Universal, and he told me to come back every Friday at a quarter to 12, because at 1230 we would eat, so 45 minutes of work. And he would work on my script, on high anxiety with me.

And he said, well, don't leave out this and don't leave out that. He said, what are you going to do about the birds? I said, well, gee, at the moment, I haven't included it. And he said, well, why don't you have them attack you with their ref, you know, with their duty? He said, it's going to be funny. I said, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hitchcock. So he gave me the birds, and he gave me a couple of others.

He gave me one joke I couldn't use. He's a very, very interesting writer. What was the joke that you couldn't use? Well, I couldn't use it because, I mean, it didn't, it wasn't part of his work. I loved him. He was colorful, he was sweet, and he saw the rough cut of high anxiety. And he got up and wiggled by me. Never said a word. I said, oh, my God, it's, ah, I'm ruined. It's terrible. And he left, and 24 hours later, a beautiful wooden box arrives placed on my desk. It is six magnums of Chateaubriand, 1961, priceless.

Maybe the greatest wine ever made, including Rothschild or any other. And with a little note saying, have no anxiety over high anxiety. It's wonderful love hitch. Now, you seem to have a great track record directing and writing for women. I mean, not only Madeline Khan, Chloris Leachman, Terry Gar, getting really warm. wonderful comic performances from these women. What was your method? Well, you know, it was respecting their ability to deliver comedy, as well as, and sometimes

a lot better than male comedians. And they knew that I respected their ability and their talent, and they gave all because of it. And they weren't ashamed or afraid to reveal maybe unconscious aspects of their comedy talent. which may have been a little off color, a little crazy, or a little bizarre, that they wouldn't show anybody, but they'd show it to me because they knew I respected the full range of their gifts. Young Frankenstein came out the same year as Blazing Saddle. The standout scene has Gene Wilder as the scientist and Peter Boyle as the creature singing, putting on the rits. And I know that that was not your idea.

That was co-writer Gene Wilders. Yes. So how long did it take before you figured out he was right? And then I have a question about what sort of direction you gave to Peter Boyle for that number, especially his singing. Well, actually, you know, when Gene first brought it up to show the wizardry of this, you know, doctor, Frankenstein coming up with this incredible creature, really reanimating dead tissue. And not only does it move, does it walk and talk,

but it also dazzled you with song and dance, you know. So I said, I think we're tearing it, Gene. I think, you know, we're going too far. We want some of the very similitudinous quality that was in the, you know, in the original James Whale movie, you know, which was serious and scary, and I don't want to lose the seriousness and the scariness of it just for silly comedy, you know, just for taking comedy too far. And he kept pushing, he said, no, no, it will show, demonstrate the doctor's abilities

to teach the monster. And finally, he kept bugging me, and I said, look, okay. I'm going to shoot it, and I'm going to put it aside, and we'll see whether or not it's useful in the main body of the picture. Okay? He said, okay, that's all I ask. Just shoot it and look at it later when you're putting it together. And I shot it, and I still was afraid of it, and then when I saw it later with all the film that we had collected, I said, gee, it may be the best thing in the film. And I called Gene and I said,

you're absolutely right all the time. And I'm glad we're... It's in, totally. And I'm looking on the cutting room floor for any outtakes, you know. And what direction did you give to Peter Boyle? Like how he... And was putting on the ritz always the first song choice? Yes, always.

And I said, Peter, sing it from your heart. sing it like it's a cry of love and freedom and everything you can think of that's good and he did Mel Brooks spoke with me in 2013

Mel Brooks was born in 2013 Mel Brooks was born in And he's still got projects in pre-production, including two planned films, Space Balls 2, and Very Young Frankenstein. Happy Halloween, Mel. In the new movie Bagonia, which is now playing in theaters, Emma Stone stars as a high-powered CEO who gets kidnapped by a low-ranking employee, played by Jesse Plemons, who believes she's an alien from outer space. It's the latest dark comedy from the filmmaker Jorgos Lantamos, who previously directed Stone and Plymins in last year's Kinds of Kindness. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review of Bagonia.

As an admirer of the Greek director Jorgos Lantamos, it gave me no pleasure to report that his 2024 film, Kinds of Kindness, was all kinds of lousy. A trio of stories about human cruelty, each one more wearying than the last. You couldn't fault the actors, though, not Emma Stone, a brilliant Lanthamos regular, who won an Oscar for her role in his film Poor Things. And not Jesse Plemons, a versatile addition to the director's regular company.

Now Stone and Plemons have reunited in Lantamose's wickedly funny new psychological thriller, Bagonia, which at times plays like a discarded fourth story from kinds of kindness that was expanded into its own feature. Bagonia is actually a remake of another film, Tang Dung Huan's low-budget thriller from 2003, Save the Green Planet, which is now regarded by many as one of the most significant Korean movies of this century. Although Bagonia is a bigger, more lavish production than Save the Green Planet,

it does preserve many of the same plot details. Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a part-time beekeeper who also works in a warehouse owned by a major corporation that makes drugs and pesticides. He blames the company and its CEO, Michelle Fuller, that's Emma Stone, girl-bossing to the max, for their role in endangering bee colonies around the world. But Teddy's rage goes further.

He claims that Michelle is an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy, bent on destroying planet Earth. And so with the help of his cousin, Dawn, played by Aidan Delbus, Teddy ambushes Michelle outside her home and knocks her out. When she comes to, she's tied up in the basement of Teddy's farmhouse and shaved bald for reasons that only her captor can explain. Where is my hair? Your hair has been destroyed.

You shaved off my hair? Yes, we have shaved off your hair. Why have you shaved off my hair? To prevent you from contacting your ship. My ship? Your ship. What ship? Your mother ship?

Teddy demands that Michelle take him and Don to her leader. Michelle's response is startlingly cool and methodical. Rather than screaming or pleading for her life, she calmly explains that she isn't an alien and that Teddy and Dawn would be wise to let her go. Even when she's incapacitated, she seems unnervingly in control of the situation. and you begin to wonder fairly early on if Michelle really is from Andromeda.

Weirdly, the answer almost doesn't matter, because there's always been something otherworldly about the way Lanthamos regards his characters. Watching one of his movies, like Dogtooth or The Killing of a Sacred Deer, is sort of like watching a strange behavioral experiment conducted by an extraterrestrial being. Even so, Bagonia doesn't have the staccato rhythms and bizarre non sequiturs of most Lanthamos movies.

It was written by Will Tracy, a co-writer on the 2022 horror satire, The Menu, and the dialogue has a lucidity that sucks you in. Teddy strains to be polite with Michelle at first, but he starts to unravel as her barbed, insinuating words get under his skin. The more Michelle talks, the more she backs Teddy into a corner, exposing layers of grief, trauma, bitterness, and disillusionment, especially concerning politics. Teddy has been all over the ideological spectrum, all right, leftist, Marxist, but now shuns all

labels, dismissing them as performative garbage. Michelle seems to share his cynicism, or maybe she's just saying that to mess with him, in the same way that Lanthamos is messing with us. scene by scene, Bagonia keeps us guessing, which of these two characters should we be more afraid of? Is Teddy just another crackpot conspiracy theorist? Or might he be on to something? Plemons' tense, heartbreaking performance allows for both possibilities, and his psychological duet with Stone is riveting to watch. There are also haunting grace notes from newcomer Aidan Delbus, who is autistic and is playing an autistic person, Dawn, the one character here

who seems completely guileless. Like many Lanthamos movies, Bagonia teams with startling tonal shifts and sudden eruptions of violence. Yet it also feels like a more accessible object than he's made before, more of a clever product, perhaps, than a sui generis vision. It's a remake, after all, and a fairly faithful one at that. Where it differs most from its source material isn't the way it looks. Where save the green planet felt grotty and claustrophobic, begonia, shot by the gifted cinematographer Robbie Ryan,

is almost distractingly gorgeous. The final sequence in particular has a spooky apocalyptic grandeur that left me in a state of near awe. Lathamos may be something of an art-house prankster, but even in his impish gaze, our endangered planet can still be a thing of beauty. Justin Chang is a film critic at The New Yorker.

On Monday's show, Richard Linklater, who made the films slacker, dazed and confused, the Before Trilogy, and Boyhood, talks about his two new films. Blue Moon is about lyricist Lorenz Hart, Nouvelle Vogue is an homage to director Jean-Luc Gattard, and the making of his 1960 revolutionary French new world. Wave film, Breathless. Join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our

managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Deanna Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David B. and Cooley. I'm Rachel Martin. If you're tired of small talk, check out the wildcard podcast. I invite influential thinkers to open up about the big topics we all think about, but rarely talk about. Tune in this fall to hear Mel Robbins, Malala Yusufzai, and Brene Brown, talk about everything from grief and God to ambition and forgiveness. Watch or listen on the NPR app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky

conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors. On our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.