‘Young Frankenstein’ Original Broadway Cast Recording—listen now!
The musical’s creator, Mel Brooks, explains the real value of Mary Shelley’s original novel.
Following the success of the record-breaking Broadway sensation The Producers, the creators turned their attentions to bringing Mel Brooks’ 1974 comedy film Young Frankenstein to the stage as a musical comedy. The original film was a parody of Universal Pictures’ classic entries in the Frankenstein series, especially 1931’s Frankenstein, 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, and 1939’s Son of Frankenstein.
Young Frankenstein follows Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronkensteen”) when he inherits a castle in Transylvania containing Igor, Inga and Frau Blucher. After discovering the secret entrance to his grandfather’s laboratory, Frederick decides to carry on the family experiments and creates a monster of his own.
Below is the whole album in a lengthy YouTube playlist. Below the playlist, find more details about the musical’s creators.
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The New Mel Brooks Musical: Young Frankenstein (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
Mel Brooks’ 1974 comedy film Young Frankenstein was directed by Brooks, and co-written by Brooks with star Gene Wilder. The musical version featured a book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan, and music and lyrics by Brooks.
In an interview, Brooks told the Los Angeles Times that Young Frankenstein is the best movie he ever made—because of Mary Shelley. “I wrote The Producers, and the bones of The Producers are very good, but I don’t know how enduring The Producers is and I know how enduring Mary Shelley’s characters are,” he told the newspaper. “What Gene and I tried to do in the writing of that basic script and then Tommy [Meehan] and I tried to do in the writing of the book was to stay somehow emotionally true to the characters and the events and not just have things reduced to nonsense.”
He says that the other shoe they drop in Young Frankenstein is great emotion. “You can call it father and son, the creator and his creation, that’s the real love story that Mary Shelley devised,” Brooks said. “It’s all good funny stuff. It’s very risqué. There’s a lot of sexy innuendo. I don’t know if Mary Shelley would be so happy.”
