Movie Moment Monday - Puttin' on the Ritz

This is the latest entry in a series in which I present one of my favorite scenes in film history. Each scene will be posted during the first work day of every week thus making it Movie Moment Monday.

If you're looking for laughs, one of the most reliable places to look is a Mel Brooks film. When prompted with the question of what the funniest movie of all time is, I usually say Young Frankenstein (1974).

Loaded with gag after gag of brilliant comedy, it has hilarious moments at every corner. So singling out one as the funniest is a very difficult task. But there's one scene, more specifically one repeated line, that never fails to make me laugh out loud. Actually, I usually start laughing seconds before it happens. And the crazy part is, it doesn't come from Gene Wilder or Marty Feldman who plays Igor. It instead comes from the man who played Frank Barone on "Everybody Loves Raymond."

The Players

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein - Gene Wilder
The Monster - Peter Boyle


The Set Up
Frederick has been haunted by his grandfather Victor's attempts to reanimate dead tissue. He can't teach a class without people bringing it up. He thinks it's impossible until he reads Victor's book on how he did it. He then follows in grandpa's footsteps and learns to do it himself. He places a brain, an abnormal one at that, inside the head of a very large dead man. At first it's a bad mix, but Frederick, in another hilarious scene, begins to compliment the monster's strength and boyish face.
"People hate you, but why do they hate you? Because they are jealous!"
The monster then drops his angry side for the moment and allows Frederick to show a group of scientists the progress he's made.
Which leads us to the scene I'm talking about. First Frederick shows them the basics like proving the monster has motor skills and the ability to hear an order and complete it. Then he moves on to a more complex presentation, which is where Boyle squeals out those four little words that make me laugh like a child. Those four little words are also the title of the song.

It's a great combination of story telling, humor and straight up musical theater. Wilder, as always, is magnificent, but Boyle steals the scene with his utterance of "Puttin' on the Ritz." I, honestly, can't get enough of it. This scene, as well as the entire movie, is comic genius any way you slice it.