Film series to show ‘Young Frankenstein’

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, directed by Mel Brooks, written by Brooks and Gene Wilder, 106 minutes, rated PG. Shows tonight only, sundown, weather permitting, Pickering Square, downtown Bangor. Lawn chairs advised. Free.

If the weather holds – which is questionable given that tonight’s movie requires a certain amount of lightning to fuel its farce – the final film in the River City Cinema Society’s Smiles on a Summer Night series won’t just be the funniest of the lot. It also is among the best comedies we’ve got – Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”

If you’ve missed any of the series, this is the film to see. Written by Brooks (“Blazing Saddles,” “The Producers”) and Gene Wilder, “Young Frankenstein” is an affectionate send-up of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, James Whale’s 1931 movie version, and all of the dozens of horror movie spin-offs they inspired.

It stars Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein – or, more specifically and phonetically, Dr. Frahnkinshteen, as he insists to be called in an effort to put as much distance as he can between himself and his grandfather, the venerable Dr. Victor Frankenstein.

When his grandfather reaches out to him from beyond the grave by way of his will, Frederick reluctantly leaves behind his high-strung fiance, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), to travel to Transylvania. There, outside his grandfather’s castle, he meets his new assistants, wall-eyed Igor (Marty Feldman) and buxomly Inga (Teri Garr), before coming in contact with Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman), a chilly reed of a woman whose pinched face suggests that somewhere in her mouth, likely beneath a forked tongue, are tucked a clutch of lemons and bitters.

But what lemons, what bitters. With her hooded eyes and impervious air of haughty detachment, Leachman thrives in her character’s neuroses, embracing the camp role of the tight-bunned Blucher as if she were Nosferatu re-animated after a sex change.

Gradually, hauntingly, hilariously, Frederick is drawn into the family business of re-animating dead tissue. Circumstances lead him below castle, where he finds his grandfather’s helpfully titled book, “How I Did It,” and begins his own connect-the-dot path to monsterdom.

With John Morris’ spooky score joining Gerald Hirschfeld’s stunning black and white photography in giving the proceedings weight, a corpse is exhumed, the wrong brain is implanted and life is given to a creature played by Peter Boyle – who, it should be noted, was a Christian monk before he became an actor.

You wouldn’t know it here. In “Young Frankenstein,” Boyle is on a slow burn, joining Brooks, Wilder and the rest of the cast in spoofing the genre while never condescending to it. Here is a comedy that loves horror movies (just as “Blazing Saddles” loved Westerns). If it didn’t, the film would have lacked the necessary substance on which to hang its laughs. But Brooks, a master of the form, knows that good satires are only good satires if they can stand up to the real thing. “Young Frankenstein” stands up to the real thing. The exception? It happens to be standing on its side.

A final note about the series: Should tonight’s movie be delayed by rain, it will show Aug. 19. Should it air as planned, “His Girl Friday,” previously delayed by rain on July 29, will run Aug. 19.

Grade: A

On video and DVD

KUNG FU HUSTLE, directed by Stephen Chow, written by Chow, Tasang Kan Cheong, Lola Huo and Chan Man Keung, 95 minutes, rated R. In Mandarin and Cantonese, with English subtitles.

When people die in Stephen Chow’s outrageous action-comedy “Kung Fu Hustle,” it usually is after making a rather intimate acquaintance with a hatchet, though not always.

Sometimes, the kiss of death arrives on the business end of a knife, a gunfight, a suckerpunch, a screaming match, a flying kick to the throat, a clutch of knuckles to the heart, a hail of swords to the torso.

Mostly, though, death comes via the aforementioned hatchet, and really, there’s good reason for that. The movie’s villains are all members of the Axe Gang, a teeming gaggle of toughs who pack hatchets like heat and who descend upon the impoverished residents of Pig Sty Alley ready to rumble.

Why the rumble? In this broad story of revenge and hysteria set in 1930s Shanghai, the short answer is that Sing (Chow) and his chubby friend, Sidekick (Lam Tze Chung), have drawn attention to themselves and to the otherwise overlooked Pig Sty Alley by posing as members of the Axe Gang. They have no idea how to fight – these two hustlers couldn’t sock a dandelion and win – but they nevertheless believe they can pass for members of the gang and thus get the respect they have always craved.

It’s a mistake for them, a boon for us. Alive with more wit and mischief than any movie thus far this year, “Kung Fu Hustle” digs deep into the chopsockey genre, with Chow joining his contemporary, Quentin Tarrantino, in challenging its conventions and pressing its humor against its raw edges.

It works beautifully. “Hustle” is filled with inside jokes and surprises, veering in directions you don’t anticipate because the movie has no rules other than to stand apart and to entertain – fabulously.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, Weekends in Television, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.