Gene Wilder

What gave you the idea of writing Young Frankenstein?

Did you love the Frankenstein movie?

Well...

At the time, I didn't know why.

But I know now that when I was a little boy, I was scared to death of the Frankenstein films, actually, because there were four of them in particular that influenced me.

And in all these years later, I wanted it to come out with a happy ending.

And...

I think it was my fear of the Frankenstein movies when I was 8 and 9 and 10 years old that made me want to write that story, that I was a young doctor or dental hygienist and found out that my great-grandfather, Beaufort von Frankenstein, left me the whole estate.

That was all I had in mind at the time.

And then my agent at the time, Mike Medavoy, before he became a movie mogul, called me up and said, how about a movie with you and Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman?

And I said, well, what makes you think of that?

He said, because I now handle you and Peter and Marty.

And I said, well, as it happens, I do have something.

Well, send it to me right now.

I said, no, I want to work on it a little bit.

And that night I wrote two more pages.

The Transylvania station scene, almost verbatim the way it is in the film.

And then I sent it off to him.

And he said, I think I can sell this and maybe we can get Mel to direct it.

And I said, I don't think he's going to direct something he didn't conceive of.