The late '60s and early '70s had been very good to television writer turned big screen comedian Mel Brooks. First, he won an Oscar for his screenplay of The Producers and then set industry tongues wagging with the race-baiting brilliance of Blazing Saddles. Aside from the misstep that was The Twelve Chairs, the filmmaker was poised to become the lowbrow Woody Allen. His next project would be the make or break movie. No one could have expected the abject brilliance that was his take on the terror genre -- Young Frankenstein.

When the grandson of the infamous monster maker discovers he's inherited his relative's estate, Victor Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) heads out to Transylvania to claim his destiny. Much to his fiancé Elizabeth's (Madeline Kahn) chagrin, he teams up with sidekick Igor (Marty Feldman) and lab assistant Inga (Teri Garr) to make his own creature. Warned against such folly by housekeeper Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman) and suspected of foul play by local lawman Inspector Kemp (Kenneth Mars), Victor carries on. Soon, he has created life in the form of a bumbling behemoth (Peter Boyle) with the brain of an "Abby Someone." Of course, the fiend ends up terrorizing the countryside, and it's up to Victor to stop him, no matter the cost.

Young Frankenstein in the gold standard of cinematic spoofs. It represent the zenith of Mel Brooks' manic mockery, and offers career-defining work from Feldman, Kahn, Garr, and the sensational Wilder. Originally conceived of as a plain horror homage to the days of Universal fright films, this hodgepodge of slapstick and satire proves that lampooning doesn't have to be a brain-dead collection of passable pop culture references. Instead, when character and story are made the most important elements within the comedy, the laughs come naturally -- and abundantly. Even now, three decades after its initial release, there's enough rapier wit and repeatable dialogue to redesign its cult of cleverness.

As an example of how to properly plan your parody, Brooks maintains a serious tone throughout. His sets borrow liberally from the old James Whale classics (even sharing some still available props) and the tone accurately mimics the melodramatic pitch of the subject matter. Of course, lunatic levity enters the room whenever Feldman appears. In a project overrun with incredible talent, his hilarious hunchback with the Monty Python mannerisms steals every single scene he's in. This is also true of Garr, who gives her natural sexiness a decidedly Swedish bent as a buxom scientist with a weird one-track mind.

Of course, it's Wilder that holds it all together, his character's combination of arrogance and cluelessness enough to fuel much of the funny business. Never once winking at the camera, no matter how goofy it gets, the actor (who also contributed to the original screenplay) transcends type to be both witty and slightly sinister. The jokes can be obvious at times, however everyone handles the material flawlessly. If there is a sticking point to the storyline, it's that the movie kind of ends on an off note. We expect something a little more sensational than the anticlimactic moment when Victor and his creation "merge." The last minute entendres fail to deliver as a finale.

Still, there is something so satisfying about this movie, so likeable and loving that it's hard to look at the rest of Brooks's canon in a similar light. He would go on to channel Hitchcock with High Anxiety, and make the last successful Silent Movie of the modern era, but over the last two decades, his hit and (mostly) miss style has soured his reputation. Young Frankenstein reminds us that, at one time, Brooks was rib-tickling royalty -- and back then, it was clearly very good to be the king.