Writer-director Mel Brooks' revisionist shtick peaks in his send-up of monster movies, Young Frankenstein. Brooks ambushes the genre with his trademark mix of raunchiness, madcap musical numbers (particularly "Puttin' on the Ritz"), and over-the-top parody, including a gut-busting bit involving Gene Hackman as a blind hermit. Shot in lustrous black-and-white, Young Frankenstein is chock-full of inspired performances. From cowriter Gene Wilder as the nefarious Frankenstein's (Fronckensteen!) grandson, to Peter Boyle as the monster with an abnormal brain and "enormous schwanzstucker," to Cloris Leachman as keeper of grandfather Frankenstein's copy of "How I Did It," the inspired cast is more than game for Brooks' hilarious butchering of old Hollywood.