The Director's Oeuvre: Mel Brooks - Blazing Saddles

In every sense, 'Blazing Saddles' feels like the movie Mel Brooks should have made after 'The Producers.'  With newfound confidence in his script, a strong cast, and a bigger budget, Brooks swings for the fences with this satirical western that shocks as often as it enthralls.

The story is about Bart, a black railroad worker who is appointed Sheriff of the small hick town of Rock Ridge by a conniving State Attorney General with hopes that he will insight unrest and run out the townspeople so he can buy the land cheap and build a railroad.  Its honestly not as complicated as it reads.

Cleavon Little plays Bart and he is as charming, charismatic, and likable as can be.  He takes the town's racism with good cheer and a smile that says "I get it. You're all bigots. And that's just the way things are."  The role requires someone eternally hopeful in a hopeless situation and Little absolutely nails it.

While the movie starts off a little rocky, one-note, and goofy for goofy's sake, the story picks up quite a bit when Gene Wilder appears as Jim, the fastest, drunkest hands in the West.  Wilder is effortlessly funny and his unassuming mug makes his speed all the more surprising.  The camaraderie between Jim and Bart is one of the highlights of the movie.

Madeline Kahn is decent as Lili Von Shtupp.  I honestly can't tell if she's trying or not.  She does get some classic one-liners in though.  "They're always coming and going and going and coming and always too soon."  I must confess that my disappointment in her role is entirely on me.  Lili is constantly referred to as one of the great comedy characters and I'm not sure why.  She's not as big a part as history would like to remember.  She's just another adversary for Bart to convert, nothing special.  I just hope you think that lisp humor is hiwawious.

But the real star of the movie is Harvey Korman as Hedey, sorry, Hedley Lamarr.  He plays the conniving State Attorney General who is continually frustrated by Bart's success in Rock Ridge.  His seething anger and dastardly villainy is a thing of wonder.

Mel Brooks is the weakest part of the movie as a cross-eyed moron, Governor William J Lepetomane, a role that exists solely so Brooks can have a part in his own movie.  I wonder if his check from the paddleball people cleared.

I can't stress how shocking this movie is.  The original title of the film was 'TEX X', "dock that chink a day's pay for nappin' on the job!" is one of the opening lines of the film, and the use of the N-word alone would make Quentin Tarantino blush.  There is a boldness present we haven't seen from Brooks before.  And yet, the film is more than just a shock fest/satire of Western tropes.  Its also a pointed criticism about the way minorities of all sorts were exploited, including African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and large-breasted secretaries.

The Looney Tunes humor feels a little tacked on, as though they didn't know what joke to put there but they knew they had to have one.  But this movie is shooting from the hip with a new joke or gag every 10 seconds.  If one of them doesn't work, and many of them don't, there will be a new one shortly.

The last act of the movie pushes meta humor, an element that will define Mel Brooks' career, to its limits with a twist so extreme even M Night Shyamalan wouldn't dare try it.  I won't spoil it here.  I'm sure at the time this was an unparalleled example of self-referential comedy but it goes on far too long as though Brooks made a list of every gag he could think of and then filmed them regardless of how long funny it was.

A recurring element in Mel Brooks' filmography is that even if you haven't seen his stuff, you've seen it referenced.  This holds true for Blazing Saddles more than any other film in his career thus far, and for good reason.  It's just that funny.