Western

Comedy

Blazing Saddles

Crossbow Productions

Warner Bros. Pictures

United States of America

Deutsch

English

Cleavon Little

Gene Wilder

Slim Pickens

Harvey Korman

Madeline Kahn

Mel Brooks

Burton Gilliam

Alex Karras

David Huddleston

Liam Dunn

John Hillerman

George Furth

Jack Starrett

Carol Arthur

Richard Collier

Charles McGregor

Robyn Hilton

Don Megowan

Dom DeLuise

Count Basie

John Alderson

Tom Anfinsen

David Armstrong

Denny Arnold

Benjie Bancroft

Herman Boden

Jimmie Booth

Alex Brown

Jerry Brown

Loren Brown

Eldon Burke

Stephen Burnette

David Cadiente

Patrick Campbell

Bart Carroll

Bill Catching

Ray Chabeau

Donald Chaffin

Dick Cherney

Jack R. Clinton

Aneta Corsaut

Dick Crockett

George Dockstader

Ross Dollarhide

Randy Doney

Alphonso DuBois

Ken DuMain

Hobert Durham Jr.

Stewart East

Daniel Elam

Kenny Endoso

Elly Enriquez

Richard Farnsworth

Fred Fisher

Bob Folkerson

Abel Franco

Ben Frommer

John Furlong

Rick Garcia

Laura Gile

Seamon Glass

Betty Jeanne Glennie

Cecil Gold

Chuck Hayward

Bud Hazlett

Francine Henderson

George Hickman

George Holmes

Kal Isaacs

Kathryn Janssen

Rosemary Johnston

Madge Journeay

M.J. Kane

Ron Kinwald

Sally Kirkland

Patrick Labyorteaux

Richard LaMarr

Tex Lambert

Jack Lilley

Craig Littler

Jay Loft-Lynn

Karl Lukas

Bert Madrid

Ralph Manza

Jimmy Martinez

Bert May

Fred McDougall

Rod McGaughy

Bill McIntosh

Clyde McLeod

Troy Melton

Ira Miller

Jessamine Milner

Richard Monahan

Boyd 'Red' Morgan

Beans Morocco

Hal Needham

Daniel Nunez

Monty O'Grady

Harvey Parry

Michael Hertzberg

Andrew Bergman

Joseph F. Biroc

Danford B. Greene

Norman Steinberg

Richard Pryor

John C. Howard

John Morris

Peter Wooley

Alan Johnson

Anthony Goldschmidt

Gene S. Cantamessa

Arthur Piantadosi

Richard Tyler

Les Fresholtz

Morris Hoffman

Sam Gordon

Nessa Hyams

William P. Owens

Vittorio Nino Novarese

Thomas S. Dawson

Herbert Winters

Alan Fama

Terry Miles

Lola 'Skip' McNalley

Julie Pitkanen

John C. Chulay

Douglas Pettibone

Eugene Marks

Carroll Timothy O'Meara

Steve Potter

Leonard S. Smith Jr.

Jonathan Tunick

Stephanie Epper

Alan Uger

Al Wyatt Sr.

Barbara Chrysler

Terry Leonard

Jeannie Epper

Loren Janes

Ronnie Rondell Jr.

Paula Dell

Gary Epper

Bob Herron

Buddy Joe Hooker

Frankie Laine

I'm married to a Millennial and that presents difficulties that are unique to her generation. Especially unique since I am Gen-X and there is that whole rejection of labels thing and her generation is obsessed with labels. And the not understanding satire or dark humor thing that plagues that generation. And, of course, the fact that my generation kind of raised ourselves and hers, well, I have to explain things like why you don't mix coloreds and whites when you do laundry.

Anyway, getting her and her besties to sit down and watch anything older than 4 years is an uphill battle... again a uniquely Millennial thing. This is odd to me since I was born after this came out, and, honestly, love a lot of movies even decades older than me.... it's the new ones I don't like.

So I begged, and I pleaded, and I finally got them to watch Blazing Saddles, on the basis that I actually forced my wife (at gun point, and knife point) to watch Young Frankenstein and she loved it.

Blazing Saddles lasted about 10 minutes before they got upset by the racism.

But they she and her best friend and her boyfriend sat it out anyway, and by the end of the movie they were throwing a fit about racism as if I sat them down to watch Birth of a Nation.

Mel Brooks somehow went way over their heads...

... I'm not exactly sure that has ever happened before... ever, in all the History of the World, I'm pretty sure that has never, ever, happened before.

So I found myself with an angry wife and two very angry friends all pretty much accusing me of being William Luther Pierce.

Still not sure what happened there. Something went horribly wrong. This movie kind of mocks racism doesn't it? it turns it into a joke so people can't take it seriously any longer and makes the viewer think that anyone who wears a white robe is an idiot. An absolute moron.

And yet their collective reaction kind of assumed the opposite.

So, anyway, I slept on the couch for a while as I slowly talked her down and explained that, no, in fact this movie was AGAINST racism. That Mel Brooks is far from a racist. That, in fact, it supports equality.

But I'm still very confused.

I still don't know how that happened.

CinemaSerf

I grew up watching the "Friday Western" each week on the television so am a bit steeped in the genre to which this takes an entertaining, and loving, swipe. "Hedley Lamarr" (Harvey Korman) is out to trash his own town so he can buy up the land cheaply for his railroad. What better way to drive folks away than to appoint an African-American sheriff? The shrewd "Bart" (Cleavon Little) knows full well that he has precisely no support from his community - not the sharpest tools in the box - so he signs up the mean "Waco Kid" (Gene Wilder) as his deputy. A gunslinger of ill-repute, he and his boss gradually convince the sheepish townsfolk that they can fight back against the scheming "Lamarr" and maybe even foil his not so cunning plan. My personal favourite scene has to be the wonderful imitation of Marlene Dietrich by Madeline Kahn singing "I'm Tired", but there are loads of other skits of everything from "High Noon" to "Chisum" with Slim Pickens and David Huddleston providing some genuine western credentials to the proceedings. Auteur Mel Brooks pops up once or twice, in differing guises, to add a bit of additional comedy to his already quite daft storyline that is respectful of cowboy movies but also quite potently critical of their stereotyping characters, their repetitive storylines and usually, their entirely predictable conclusions. This mixes all of that up with Little and Wilder gelling well, presenting us with a genuinely laugh out loud, occasionally slap-stick, critique of one hundred years of a theme of cinema that has probably not really evolved that much since 1874!

<em>'Blazing Saddles'</em> is fairly funny. The good intentions of this 1974 satire is clear to see, naturally it can come across as a bit on the nose at times but it does lead to some amusement. Cleavon Little & Gene Wilder give good performances; always nice to see the latter.

Harvey Korman is the one I probably found most amusing, for example the Hedy Lamarr running gag gave me a minor chuckle each time. In fact, that scene with him and Robert Ridgely (credit to him, also) is probably the one I'll remember most from this; that and the quicksand part.

Both of those aforementioned bits are at the beginning. It's certainly a film that I'd say starts stronger than it finishes. I don't mean that in a negative way, but if the run time was longer then it'll would've become an issue. The conclusion itself is bizarre, kinda a lacklustre end in truth.

Just like with when I watched <em>'Robin Hood: Men in Tights'</em> earlier this month, I can see the general appeal for this Mel Brooks flick. I enjoyed both movies, with this one a notch above that one in my opinion. The two are equally worth watching, all the same.

Best Movies

Blazing Saddles

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Cleavon Little

Gene Wilder

Slim Pickens

Harvey Korman

Madeline Kahn

Mel Brooks

Burton Gilliam

Alex Karras

David Huddleston

Liam Dunn

Box office

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