I just watched the 1949 MGM movie of The Secret Garden last night, and it strikes me that Gladys Cooper’s stern Mrs. Medlock character must have been the model upon which Young Frankenstein’s Frau Blücher was based. Mrs. Medlock doesn’t speak with a German accent, but she is as harsh as you can imagine, and she’s always carrying around a candelabra everywhere she goes that glows ever so slightly, but never really seems to be very well lit with radiant candlelight. This character seems to be as similar to Frau Blücher as Judith Anderson’s Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca (and Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz) is to Nurse Diesel in High Anxiety. I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere that Mrs. Medlock was the model for Frau Blücher, but there were never any characters like Frau Blücher in any of the old Frankenstein movies, so she had to come from somewhere else. And while Mrs. Medlock doesn’t have all the stereotypical Germanic qualities of Frau Blücher, she most certainly has all of the spooky, stern, stiff, harsh, unbending, repulsive character we see more humorously reflected in our Young Frankenstein anti-heroine.
I wish I could find a movie still or a picture of Gladys Cooper as Mrs. Medlock with her glowing barely-lit-looking candelabra from The Secret Garden to show you how similar she looks to Frau Blücher from Young Frankenstein, at least in character and demeanor, but if you want to see her for yourself, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to watch the 1949 MGM version of The Secret Garden. But it’s a delightful movie with great gothic novel & gothic movie flare, so it will be well worth seeing in any case.
