Audio Study of Young Frankenstein

Young Frankenstein, written by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, was released in 1974. This is a film spoofing old horror movies, specifically the Frankenstein movies of the early 30's. The film is shot entirely in black and white, and takes place almost entirely in Transylvania. Honored with a 1975 Oscar nomination for best sound for sound crew   Richard Portman and Gene Cantamessa. This movie is arguably one of Mel Brook's best. It has style, flair, romance, suspense, and above all, great comedy. It has some good Foley, great dialog, and fitting music. The music is often non-diagetic, but there is one song in particular that almost takes the form of a character. The rest of the music can be described as either mickey mousing or what I call emotional interpretation. I normally don't like mickey mousing, but for some reason in this film, it works. Perhaps it is because it feeds the never ending comedic tone. The "emotional interpretation" score can be described as a musical score that is specifically meant to convey the current emotion of a particular character or set of characters to the audience. The dialog is edgy, with an ‘in your face' quality, that almost feels like its distorting at times. And maybe it is. There are several sync problems in the film, probably due to the equipment. If I had to guess, I'd say that over half of the dialog is actual production dialog. I get the impression that they wanted to avoid post audio as much as possible.

-The Opening Credits/Baron's Coffin
Film starts off with the 20th century fox logo/fanfare. It is in black and white, and the audio is made to sound like an old tape recording. The first thing we hear is the beginning of the ominous score   of John Morris, as " A Mel Brooks Film" is displayed across the screen. This leads into the Title display, accented by the first of many Thunder/lightning effects used in the film. The thunder sound is most likely a copycat of the original sound used in the classic Frankenstein movies, a... [continues]

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