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All Movie Info
Starring:
Cleavon Little, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Gene Wilder, Mel Brooks, John Hillerman, Alex Karras, Dom DeLuise, Liam Dunn, Slim Pickens, David Huddleston, Count Basie, Burton Gilliam
Directed By:
Mel Brooks
Written By:
Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Mel Brooks, Alan Uger
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Blazing Saddles (1974)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
July 14th, 2007
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'Blazing Saddles' is arguably Mel Brooks's masterpiece, though I believe Young Frankenstein is much better, this parody of Westerns is certainly one of the funniest of American comedies, made with skillfully zany abandon, and enjoying every minute of itself, though the jokes and one-liners are delivered in a strictly serious fashion by most of the actors, which adds to the overall effect, and creates a memorable, often uproarious romp.
Cleavon Little is Bart, a black railroad worker who is selected by the governor (played by Brooks), with the encouragement of conniving official Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), to be the sheriff of a small desert town called Rock Ridge. Lamarr (who always has his name confused with that of the famous actress Hedy Lamarr), hopes that this will deeply offend the residents of the town and make them leave, so that he can lay track through the area. And offend them it does. 'Blazing Saddles' unabashedly spoofs racism, with the liberal use of derogatory terms for black, gay, and Chinese people, not to mention abundant caricatures of the aforementioned groups. A very clever Jewish joke is thrown in for good measure, as well. Of course, fittingly, the ones who utter these words and hold these prejudiced views are portrayed as hopeless morons, outsmarted at every turn by the resourceful Bart and his sidekick Jim, a.k.a the Waco Kid (a very good Gene Wilder). It is also amusing to note that all the bigots in Rock Ridge all have the same last name of Johnson, which implies they are all inbred and related to one another, another send-up of a stereotype, that of the redneck.
Madeline Kahn is Lili von Shtupp, a brilliant impersonation of Marlene Dietrich, with an obviously phony and lispy Bavarian accent and a slutty persona (she is hired by Lamarr to seduce Bart, and becomes obsessed with his oversized male endowment). Slim Pickens is wonderful as Lamarr's stupid subordinate, Taggart, though he looks and acts much like his character in Dr. Strangelove, Major Kong. Brooks spares nothing, with intentionally preposterous anachronisms; the setting is 1874, but everyone knows Randolph Scott, Bart carries a Gucci saddle bag, and German soldiers from WWII (complete with a brief Hitler salute) show up as outlaw recruits, alongside Mexican bandits (who repeat a well-known line from The Treasure of Sierra Madre) and hooded Klansmen. Part of Korman's dialogue has him saying he stands no chance of winning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Towards the end, a major fight breaks out between Taggart's army of bad guys and the citizens of Rock Ridge, and it spills over into the Hollywood backlot, with another movie set (with Dom DeLuise as the effeminate director) and a cafeteria, out into the streets, and even into a theater where 'Blazing Saddles' is listed on the marquee. The Western genre, as embodied by John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and Clint Eastwood, has created many fine films, most from John Ford and Howard Hawks and Sergio Leone, but, like most genres, it has its inherent cliches, which grow tiresome after you see them hundreds of times, and 'Blazing Saddles' makes sure to poke fun at these cliches in a cheerful and respectful manner.
Mel Brooks has not made a movie to equal this in a very long time, in fact, he has apparently squandered his great comic talent on duds like Dracula: Dead and Loving It, and I await the day he returns to the top of his craft, as illustrated by what he produced in the 1970s, but he may not be around long enough to carry this out. But, in any sense, this is a terrific bit of hilarity, and I highly recommend it to all. Admittedly, it is not as edgy as it was when first released, and some of the gags fall flat, but enough of it works to make it a classic, in my view.
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