Fronkenshteen

The main character, Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, is the grandson of the main character of Shelley’s book, Dr. Victor Frankenstein.  Frederick views his grandfather as a madman for claiming to have created a monster by restoring life to a corpse and chooses not to be associated with him.  He changes the pronunciation of his name to “Fron-ken-shteen” and when people pronounce it the wrong way, identifying him with his infamous grandfather, he angrily stabs himself in his own leg.  However, when he inherits his grandfather’s castle, he, ironically, follows in Dr. Victor’s footsteps, creates his own monster.   This ironic situation creates a comical story full of twists and turns, mocking the original book and movies of the Frankenstein story.  It also alludes to the identity crisis Frederick is in.  He cannot let his name and, in turn, his identity be defiled with the success, or failure, of his grandfather’s creation.  However, when given the chance, he performs the exact same experiment as his grandfather, except that he uses an abnormal brain, on accident.  Mel Brooks then inserts an alternate ending by transforming the stiff moving, dumb monster into an intelligent monster who can dance, sing, reason, and fall in love with the fiancé of Frederick.  Frederick does become successful and famous; however, it is by doing the very thing that he claimed absurd and insane at the beginning of the movie.

The somewhat romantic, somewhat unromantic relationship between Frederick and his fiancé is an interesting thing for Brooks to add to his spoof of Frankenstein.  The relationship is boring at best and little is even seen of Frederick’s plain fiancé.  The film focuses much more of the good looking, not so smart, foreign assistant of Frederick, who he happens to fall in love with and marry at the end of the film.  While Frederick falls in love with his sexy assistant, another interesting relationship is formed between the monster and Frederick’s fiancé.  Brooks steers away from the potential jealousy between the two women who were both at one time in love with Frederick.