With Halloween around the corner, it’s the time of the year again when you may get the urge to rewatch Young Frankenstein, realize it’s on some streaming service you’ve never heard of, and decide to read a bunch of stuff about it online instead. If you do read enough on the subject, you’ll get the impression that some of its funniest moments were made up on the spot. Was there really that much improvisation going on? After all, that old tale about Frau Blücher’s last name being the German word for glue—hence explaining why horses whinny every time they hear it—ended up being nothing more than an urban legend. Armed with a few drafts of the script, we decided to comb through them to get to the bottom of these legends once and for all. Here’s what we found…
4. “What hump?”
When Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) first meets Igor (Marty Feldman) at the Transylvania train station early in the film, he accidentally places his hand on the hump protruding from Igor’s back. Frederick then offers to remove the hump for him as a favor, surgically. Igor’s hilariously awkward response: “What hump?” This is often referred to as an ad-lib, but a quick look at the first draft of the screenplay reveals that exact line as spoken in the movie. Unless Feldman somehow ad-libbed the line before the original script was written, this sadly appears to be just another myth.
Verdict: Not an ad-lib.
3. “I was gonna make espresso.”
After Frederick’s “Monster,” played by Peter Boyle, escapes from the Frankenstein castle, he has an unforgettable encounter with a blind hermit who happens to be the one and only Gene Hackman. The hermit offers the monster some wine and soup before scaring him off by mistaking his finger for a cigar and lighting it on fire. The scene abruptly fades as Hackman asks, “Where are you going? I was gonna make espresso.” Legend has it that the reason for the abrupt fade-out was that the crew couldn’t contain their laughter after hearing the unscripted line. The laugh may be genuine, but this line also pops up as early as the third draft, so it wasn’t the unscripted part that caused them to fade out early.
Verdict: Not an ad-lib.
2. “You take the blonde, and I’ll take the one in the turban.”
When Frederick’s fiancée, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), unexpectedly arrives at the castle one night, Igor attempts to shoot his shot with her right then and there. Frederick asks Igor to help him with the bags, to which Igor responds, “Certainly, you take the blonde, and I’ll take the one in the turban.” Was this rumored ad-lib just another scripted line like the others? Actually, evidence suggests that this may have been at least partially improvised. A variation of this line appears in the third and fourth drafts of the script, like so: “All right….you take the blonde, I’ll take the dark one.” Neither draft mentions anything about the very British Feldman delivering the line while doing a Groucho Marx imitation, however.
Verdict: Partially scripted.
1. “No tongues.”
After settling in for the night at Frederick’s ancestral castle, Elizabeth instructs him to give her a kiss and say goodnight. Just as he leans in to plant one on her, she tells him firmly, “No tongues”—prompting Frederick to finish the rest of his dialogue without the use of his tongue. This exchange, we’re happy to report, doesn’t appear in any available drafts of the script at all. So not only did Madeline Kahn apparently come up with her line during filming, but Gene Wilder’s reaction to it was seemingly completely improvised as well.
Verdict: Ad-libbed.
The post What’s An Ad-Lib and What’s Not? 4 ‘Young Frankenstein’ Legends Examined appeared first on VICE.
