One day Mike Medavoy, who would eventually be running TriStar Pictures but was Gene’s agent at the time, called Gene and said, “I know you’re working with Mel on that Frankenstein picture, is there anything in it for Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman?”
Gene said, “What made you think of that combination?”
Mike replied, “Because I’m not only your agent, I also now handle Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman.”
Gene said, “Wow. As a matter of fact, as it happens, I think I do…”
And believe it or not, that’s how we got Peter Boyle to be our incredible monster and Marty Feldman to be our unforgettable Igor. Talk about a stroke of luck!
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God put Marty Feldman together. We had nothing to do with it. I met Marty in England, where he had a television show called The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, which my friend and former Sid Caesar writers’ room partner Larry Gelbart was writing. I fell in love with Marty instantly and when Mike Medavoy suggested him, I knew he would be absolutely perfect for Igor.
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As everybody who has seen Young Frankenstein knows, Marty Feldman has bulging eyes. It’s a condition called “Graves’ ophthalmopathy” in which his eyes protrude and he more or less sees out the sides of his face like a horse, rather than straight ahead.
I tell this joke about Marty in my stand-up routine: “Anytime I wanted to hide from Marty Feldman I’d put the tip of my nose against his…and he couldn’t see me!”
I was so lucky to get him to play the role of the mad humpbacked Igor. Marty came up with the funniest retort in the movie.
When Gene says, “You know I don’t mean to embarrass you but I’m a rather brilliant surgeon, perhaps I could help you with that hump.”
Marty came back with: “What hump?”
It was dynamite.
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I first saw Peter Boyle in the movie Joe, a tough political story in which he was wonderful in his portrayal of a terrible person. In Young Frankenstein, the monster is scary and miserable, but there is a sweet child in him. Gene said, “Peter can do both.”
Peter was a consummate artist, and the beauty of him came through, his soul shone through. He bestowed an absolute magnificence on the creature.
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We knew Young Frankenstein had to be in black and white if we were going to salute those great Universal Pictures that James Whale made in the 1930s, and we thought we needed at least two million dollars to do it （which was the going price to make a modest film in those days）。 When the script was finished, our producer Michael Gruskoff along with Gene and I went to a meeting to sell it to Columbia Pictures.
Now remember, as we were walking into this meeting Blazing Saddles hadn’t been released yet, so my reputation as a hit-producing moneymaker was not yet established. Still, the Columbia executives liked the script. They wanted to make it, but the most they would come up with was a million and a half.
（Had they known at the time about the future box office of Blazing Saddles they wouldn’t have quibbled about a half a million bucks.）
We needed two million, so Mike got them to split the difference and they said yes to 1.75 million dollars. We shook hands all around and said, “It’s a deal.”
On the way out, I turned back and said, “Oh, by the way, we’re going to make it in black and white.”
Then I closed the door.
A thundering herd of studio executives chased us down the hall from the meeting room.
They were screaming, “No, no! Wait, come back! No black and white! No black and white! Peru just got color! Everything is in color! Nobody makes movies in black and white anymore!”
The thing about satire is the walls, the floors, the costumes; everything surrounding the comedy has to be real. If we were going to satirize the classic 1930s Universal Frankenstein pictures, our film had to be in black and white.
The Columbia guys offered a compromise: “Shoot it in color, and we’ll diffuse it and take the color out for the U.S., but in the rest of the world it would have color.”
I knew they were lying. Studios have a way of promising the world and giving you zero. I said no, because I knew they’d somehow trick us and release it in color anyway.
I said, “There’s a stock called Agfa. It’s a German black-and-white film. It’s true, rich, thick black and white. That’s the only film stock I’ll make it on.”
The Columbia guys said, “We’re sorry. If it’s not in color, that’s going to break the deal.”