Young Frankenstein went through a fair amount of trimming before it was shaped into the comedy classic we know today. The original cut that they test-screened in 1974 was more than two hours long and didn’t get a warm reception. Gene Wilder loved working on the movie so much that he asked Mel Brooks if they could shoot a few more scenes after filming had already wrapped. Given the enduring legacy of the released version, it’s hard to argue that the final decisions they made weren’t the right ones.
A selection of deleted scenes and outtakes have made their way out of the vaults over the years, and while interesting, it’s obvious why they didn’t end up using them. That’s not to say that they’re bad or anything; they just would’ve messed with the pacing a bit. However, one scripted scene that doesn’t appear to have made it beyond the pages of the original screenplay would’ve given the movie a totally different feel if they’d decided to keep it in. It was likely never filmed, and before we even finish discussing the details, you’ll get a pretty clear idea why.
The sequence in question would’ve been interspersed with the footage of the brain transference operation toward the end of the movie. Ever notice how Frau Blücher, the creepy housekeeper played by Cloris Leachman, is missing during that part? She briefly pops her head out from the library in the back of the laboratory while Peter Boyle, as the Monster, gives his final speech, but is otherwise absent. Well, as fate would have it, Wilder’s first draft of the script explains just exactly what she was doing in there by herself.
After the operation begins, we cut to Fraü Blucher in the library, who’s sitting in a chair, bare-chested. She’s also in the middle of flagellating—that is, whipping—herself using a handful of branches. From there, the script says, “She mumbles some mysterious prayer in German—occasionally looking out through a crack in the door to see what is happening to ‘her’ monster.” As the angry villagers outside begin pounding on the castle door, she reaches “the height of her self-flagellation” and is “almost in ecstasy,” yelling, “Oh, yes! Oh, yes, yes, yes!”
Back in the operating room, Inga (Teri Garr) asks Igor (Marty Feldman) what the noise is at the front door, and he replies by saying, “Sounds like visitors. It’s all right—Frau Blücher will show them in.” Meanwhile, the naughty caretaker is “dripping wet from the passion of her climax.” Just prior to the villagers storming into the library, Blücher yells out to her deceased boyfriend, Dr. Frankenstein, “Victor! I’m coming! I’m comming [sic], Victor!”
At the end of the day, this Frau Blücher scene might have been better off left on the cutting room floor, but the whole whipping thing at least offers us some insight as to why her name strikes fear into the hearts of every horse that hears it.
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