110 of 1001 Movies: Blazing Saddles(1974)

Mel Brooks goes there in his comedy Blazing Saddles, which is most likely the highlight of his comedic directing career. Blazing Saddles is often said to be the movie that you probably couldn't make nowadays as it is blunt in what it means, and the characters use a lot of words that have gotten censored with their racist meanings. Mel Brooks though tackles the subject, particularly close to when these things were very heated still as well, and makes it comedic while empowering, by portraying the racist as not as smart as they hope to believe.

Hedley is a corrupt political boss who receives a request from a town for a sheriff after they have faced several attacks. In order to destroy the town though since they are on bad terms he sends them a sheriff they will hate, and will turn on. He sends Bart, a black man, to become sheriff of the town, and they town instantly reacts with outrage until he begins preventing the crime in the town with the help of a cocaine addict, Jim, who was a prisoner at the town when he arrives there. While the town still remains very rooted in their dumbness they do begin to turn over a new leaf of realizing who is on their side.


The way Cleavon Little instantly presents Bart the viewer can take a sigh of relief as he provides an instant much needed likable character, and he makes up for all the characters you'll feel badly against. On top of that he is also very witty as Bart, and as this way of making Bart still comedic but not in the way the other characters are. Gene Wilder is Jim, and if you'll like him more at least after this movie because he doesn't have much comedy going on with his role as much as the others, but he is the one support the lead needs, without outshining him.

The other cast is quite different than how the two leads present themselves, but everyone knows that their characters are so racist the only way to even present them would be with a goofy present that tries to make lighter of the situation they are in. Otherwise the whole movie could lose the funny. Harvery Korman is Hedley, and makes him very dislikable and silly. The other characters follow a very slapstick way of being like Mel Brooks as the governor, and Slim Pickens as Taggart.

The movie does get sort of crazy, and this brand of humor goes for the extreme to get it's laugh. We at one point even transition from the west to modern Hollywood to keep it really bizarre. Movies like Airplane! would follow this sort of formula this movie employs for laughs, and it does work because it gets really outrageous.

Blazing Saddles doesn't hold back as far as the message and the laughs. It puts everything out there in what seems to be the belief that if it can be made funny then it's okay to do it. Some scenes will be so random that it does get a laugh. The story also plays out to be entertaining too, and does allow for the characters to grow in the middle of the silliness.

Rating 7 of 10.