[8.0/10] The common refrain lately is that “You couldn’t make a movie like *Blazing Saddles* today. And it’s right. You probably couldn’t make this exact movie in 2020. There’s too many racial slurs, too many jokes about rape, and too many homophobic epithets at play.

But I think you could still make this kind of movie in the modern era, even if the tone might be a tad different, because its heart is in the right place. The film has been so swept up as part of the Mel Brooks pantheon that it’s easy to forget Richard Pryor is one of the credited writers (and, but for studio reluctance, would have been one of its stars.) With that in mind, as distasteful as some of its bits and dialogue is to the modern ear, much of it’s forgivable, if only through who its real targets are.

Which is to say, the bad guys in *Blazing Saddles* are a pack of rock-headed racists who get what’s coming to them, while the good guys are a black sheriff and the colleague who doesn’t so much as blink at working with him. Even the racist townsfolk, whose prejudice fuels much of both the comedy and the story of the picture, are derided as morons who have to be led by the nose (and more importantly, self-interest) into accepting their African American lawman as the source of authority and enforcement in their humble berg.

It’s a satire, one that uses that sort of offensive language to criticize the people uttering it. That’s not to undermine the ways in which it could easily hurt people to hear those words, regardless of intent, or criticism that it flows a little too freely regardless of the context. But it’s to suggest that if Jordan Peele or Spike Lee or even Mel Brooks alum Dave Chapelle made a movie like this, the public would still accept it, and probably even celebrate it, for the uncomfortable yet potent points that it makes in all its farce. The only difference may be that Pryor’s name would be higher on the poster than Brooks’s.

And yet, this feels very much like a Mel Brooks film -- less for the racial commentary or freewheeling humor about ethnicity, gender, and the like, and more for the abject silliness of the whole thing. Social viewpoint aside, *Blazing Saddles* wouldn’t work a whit without the supreme irreverence that infuses every inch of the frame.

A great deal of that stems from the post-modern approach that suffuses the film. The movie’s villain wonders what to do while looking directly at the camera, only to stop mid-soliloquy to ask, “Why am I asking you?” Sly lines of dialogue wink at the contrivances of the script and the genre. All that winking, of course, is topped by the movie’s climactic set piece, where the inevitable third act gunfight and skirmish spills onto the studio’s lot, replete with pie fight and pistol-packing confrontation outside of the movie theater. Separate from all the social issues given life through Pryor and Brooks’s setup, there’s a comic lunacy to all of this that wins the day.

Likewise, a lovable cartoonishness keeps the picture light and comically outrageous. Literal *Looney Tunes* music plays while Cleavon Little’s Bart thwarts the unfortunately-named Mongo. On-screen trickery makes Gene Wilder’s Jim an impossibly fast gunfighter to amusing ends. Horses get punched out, hats get shot up, and showering locals find themselves exposed. It’s all extraordinarily silly, but that’s the charm of this one, a movie that absolutely refuses to take itself seriously.

It’s also a surprisingly action-packed movie. There’s rarely much at stake, and it maintains a tone of weightless, Bugs Bunny-esque screwball antics, but Brooks and Pryor spare no bit of spectacle when realizing the madness and mayhem caused by the various cutthroats and horse-thieves marauding their way through town. As a Western homage, *Blazing Saddles* is firmly tongue-in-cheek, but doesn’t skimp on the horse-work or over-the-top scraps and skirmishes.

That all matches with the vaudevillian flair that permeates the whole feature. There’s so much fast-talking irreverence and downright goofiness, that you can hardly finish laughing from the last gag before the next one hits. In truth, not every joke lands, but they come so fast and furiously that if you don’t like the current one, you just have to wait a second before the next one arrives. The film’s social satire tack is to make the bigoted bad guys look like fools, and it uses every ridiculous tool in the comic arsenal to accomplish it.

And yet, the group that truly gets the short end of the stick is women. While there’s a level of insensitivity to indigneous people and people from the Middle East, among others, these are mainly passing gags. By contrast, the female presence in *Blazing Saddles* is more consistent and exists to be sexualized and impressed or disdainful of various characters’ talents (or lack thereof) in the bedroom. Madeline Kahn delivers an uproarious performance as always, and her performance of “I’m Tired” brings the house down on- and off-screen, but the movie’s biggest sin on that front is relegating its female characters to being sexual props.

Still, for all the otherwise distasteful language and less-than-enlightened bits that Pryor and Brooks deploy, for the most part, they aim their jabs in the right direction. Let’s be real, I’m a thirty-something white guy (and one reared on Catskills-esque humor generally, and Brooks’s humor specifically, to boot). This kind of movie is designed to make people like me laugh, regardless of whether it might hurt someone else to hear those words or see those gags. I’m not a good thermometer for whether this movie is offensive or potentially even hurtful, when viewed with modern eyes.

But my temptation is to forgive the film’s more dated excesses, at least as far as race is concerned, with the sense that it’s of its time and means well in whom it endeavors to remove the stuffing and dignity from. The good guys are either diverse or accepting; the bad guys are bigots and dolts, and the ones who switch sides do so less out of high-minded principle than out of a sense of pragmatic tail-saving. That says as much about race relations in 1874 as it does about 1974, and sadly, is still relevant right now.

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.

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!

The thing that makes this movie so special is the skill with which the cast members deliver the jokes. I have no idea why Slim Pickens yelling "What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on?!" is so funny, but it is. I'm not sure I caught half of what Madeline Kahn was saying or singing but I know I laughed out loud. Check out how awkward she is when she's performing her song and stumble act. Her character doesn't even know she can half-ass it and it won't matter to the hootin' and hollerin' rough riders in the audience. It's like she's trying but she's just that bad and it still doesn't matter. Very subtle in a movie not known for its subtlety.

Harvey Korman drives the movie with what is basically a mustache-twisting Snidley Whiplash performance sans the mustache. I think Slim Pickens is my favorite, though. His Taggart character is just smart enough to know he's leading a group of idiots but not smart enough to actually do it. His frustration with his boss and his minions is hilarious. He's trying but it's hopeless and he knows it.

The whole affair degrades into total chaos by the end and those expecting to get a conclusion that actually makes sense are out of luck. But this is all done for laughs so none of it matters. It's all about having a good time.

_"Okay, okay, we have done it. Now, let's see what we have done."_

First and foremost, for those of you who don't know, the previous film I've watched was _Airplane!_ And by all means, I should've found that film funnier. Yet I laughed more watching this one. I still didn't laugh _that_ much; it's not like I was laughing throughout its entirety. But I still laughed out loud more times while watching this film than I did with _Airplane!_

As a whole, I thought this film, along with its narrative, was more coherent than _Airplane!_ was; whereas, in the latter, it felt like a whole lot of things put together to where specific ones are good and funny, better than others, but the film itself is lackluster. This film seemed better, altogether, with some of the things themselves not "landing right," so to speak. I hope that makes sense.

I don't know the "status" of this film; whether it's considered an iconic one. I would assume that it is, to an extent. And I'd imagine that it's similar to _Airplane!_ and that's in the sense that most people like it a lot and think it's one of the best comedy films of all time. I wouldn't go that far; maybe watching it for the first time now instead of back when it was released or somewhere around there plays a part in that. Who knows.

I thought this film had a fantastic ensemble of characters. The ones that stood out the most to me; and whose existences elevated the film as a whole: Hedley Lamarr, Taggart, Bart, Jim, Lyle, and Lili Von Shtupp. And I know that's pretty much every significant character, but I did say this film had a fantastic _ensemble of characters._ Those characters did a lot for this film and my enjoyment watching it.

Speaking of things that did a lot for the film, I thought the soundtrack elevated this film, too. I thought it did a good job when it came to evoking certain feelings and emotions. More specifically, the song at the start of the film was fantastic, and so was the song at the end. Both of them were my favorites, or it; it could've been a single song. But the entire soundtrack was good. The soundtrack is one of the aspects that did a lot for this film, at least for me.

Here are some of my particular thoughts:

- The beginning was the funniest (and best) part of the entire film for me. That whole song segment was gold, and the way Cleavon Little started getting into it or as the character was gold, too. Lyle's dialogue, reaction, and expressions were gold as well. Props to Burton Gilliam.

- Most people probably won't get this reference, but there's a Youtube channel by the name of, _YaBoyRockLee._ And the guy on the right side of their videos (from our perspective) sounds a lot like Charlie, played by Charles McGregor. I thought that was very interesting.

- I knew Howard Johnson looked familiar; John Hillerman, of course. He played Higgins in the original _Magnum, P.I._ For some reason, the actor who I thought of was Christian McKay; he played Mayor Samuel Blake in Cinemax's but now HBO Max's _Warrior._ But I knew it couldn't have been him since he was born one year before this film was released.

- The improvised line ("You know, morons.") by Gene Wilder was a good moment, as was Cleavon Little's subsequent breaking of character by laughing: and then, going back into character for continuing the scene. That happened to add a lot to that scene, making it more impactful; no wonder it's in the film despite that.

- Lili von Shtupp's song performance was a little awkward to watch. The dance sequence in _Airplane!_ was better. But after watching it a second time, it didn't seem that awkward. If both that performance and the dance sequence in _Airplane!_ were to be compared, I'd prefer the latter.

- The fourth-wall break at the end was lame. Some people possibly think it was the best part/their favorite part, but I thought it was lame. Once it reached the theater part, that's when it wasn't as lame.

- I know some people believe that Bart and Jim were in love with each other, to a certain extent, I suppose: and to be honest: I can see it. Either way, I thought their companionship and camaraderie were one of the best aspects of this film.

All-in-all, I was entertained watching this film, although I don't think my perspective towards it is similar to most people's perspective, in that it's one of the best comedy films _for them_ or maybe objectively as well. As far as my opinion is concerned, I think this film is somewhat 'up there' when it comes to objectively, but not that high up: and while it may stick out more and seem like one of the best comedy films I've watched after I've seen a lot more comedy films, right now, I wouldn't say it is. At most, I was entertained, and sometimes, that's enough; sometimes, that _has_ to be enough.