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What: Screening of “Young Frankenstein”
When: 7 p.m. Oct. 16
Where: Joslyn Art Museum, 2200 Dodge St.
Tickets: $20, available at all Hy-Vee
Supermarkets
Proceeds benefit the Omaha Hearing School for Children
Put your horses away. Frau Blücher is coming to town.
Tickets go on sale today for Omaha film historian Bruce Crawford’s 25th classic movie screening, Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”
Crawford’s special guest for the Oct. 16 screening will be Oscar-winning actress Cloris Leachman, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing Frau Blücher, an elderly housekeeper in “Young Frankenstein.”
One of the movie’s running jokes is that every time Blücher’s name is mentioned, a horse whinnies. Brooks later said he erroneously thought Blücher was the German word for glue, hence the joke about horses fearing the glue factory.
The other famous running joke: Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) insists his name is pronounced Frahnkensteen, while humpbacked Igor (a bug-eyed Marty Feldman) says his name is pronounced Eye-gor.
1974’s “Young Frankenstein” ranks 13th on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 funniest movies.
“I’ve always wanted to do a Mel Brooks movie,” Crawford said.
Seeing Leachman as a guest programmer on Turner Classic Movies last spring, Crawford recalled that she grew up in Des Moines and might be interested in returning to the Midwest. He was right.
“It’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and truly a brilliant homage to the original films,” Crawford said.
“It’s probably his most popular movie, and a bigger box office hit than ‘Blazing Saddles,’ which came out that same year.”
The movie also features Teri Garr as Inga, Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth, Peter Boyle as the monster and Gene Hackman as a blind man.
Like “The Producers,” the movie version of “Young Frankenstein” led to a Broadway musical, which ran from November 2007 to January 2009.
Leachman won an Oscar in 1971 for “The Last Picture Show.” The next year she began playing nosy neighbor Phyllis on the television sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which earned her two Emmys and led to her own sitcom, “Phyllis.” She won a Golden Globe for that show. In all she has won eight Primetime Emmys and been nominated for 21.
She continues to make movies and is coming to Omaha from the set of “The Fields,” now in production in Pennsylvania.
Leachman, 83, will speak just before the screening and afterward will sign copies of “Cloris: My Autobiography,” a best-seller released in March.
A recent contestant on “Dancing With the Stars,” she also will judge a dance contest the following evening. The Omaha Hearing School for Children will sponsor the Monster Bash, a masquerade dance, at 7 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Milo Bail Student Center on the University of Nebraska at Omaha campus.
Tickets for the dance are $35. For $100, patrons can meet Leachman at 6 p.m., enjoy hors d’oeuvres and get reserved tables. For information, call the school at 558-1546.
Contact the writer:
444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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