Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles is a Warner Bros. 1974 comedy directed by Mel Brooks and starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder. The film was written (in what Brooks called Your Show of Shows-style) by a team of writers, namely Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, and Alan Uger; it was based on Bergman's story and draft. Brooks appears in multiple supporting roles, including the Governor and a Yiddish-speaking Indian Chief. Slim Pickens, Alex Karras and Brooks regulars Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn and Harvey Korman are also featured. The film is an over-the-top parody of the Western film genre, in addition to being an intelligent satire about racism.

Plot

The story is set in the Southwest United States in 1874 (though it is filled with deliberately anachronistic references to the 1970s). Construction on a planned railroad runs into quicksand; the route has to be changed, which will cause it to be built near the town of Rock Ridge. State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (played by Korman) — not to be confused, as he often is in the film, with Hedy Lamarr — wants to buy the land along the railroad cheaply, but has to cause the townspeople to leave. He hires some thugs to scare them, which leads the townsfolk to demand that the Governor appoint a sheriff. The Attorney General convinces the dim-witted governor (Brooks) to appoint Bart (Little), an African American, as the new sheriff. He believes that this will so offend the townspeople they will either abandon the town or lynch the new sheriff.

Related Topics:
Southwest United States - Anachronistic - 1970s - Quicksand - Hedy Lamarr - Sheriff - African American

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

With his quick wits and the assistance of an alcoholic former gunslinger Jim (Wilder), "The Waco Kid" ("I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille!"), Bart somewhat overcomes the hostile reception and the seductions of wily temptress-for-hire Lili von Schtupp (Kahn) and inspires the townfolk to resist Lamarr's band of thugs.

Related Topics:
Alcoholic - Gunslinger - Cecil B. DeMille

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The movie uses some outrageously racist themes, but in a self-aware way that successfully manages to mock racism itself. And no ethnic group is spared from satirical barbs. At one point, David Huddleston's character grudgingly concedes, "All right, we'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks. But we don't want the Irish!" Although to be fair, he did not use a racial epithet to refer to the Irish. After some criticism from the people, he then lets everyone, including the Irish, have land.

Related Topics:
Racist - David Huddleston - Nigger - Chink - Irish

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One of its most famous scenes is of a group of cowboys sitting round a fire eating plates of beans; for the entire scene the soundtrack plays loud evidence of the most notorious side effect of beans.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~