Blazing Saddles

Film: Blazing Saddles
Year: 1974
Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Slim Pickens, Dom DeLuise, Mel Brooks, Liam Dunn, George Furth, Burton Gilliam, John Hillerman, David Huddleston, Richard Collier, Alex Karras, Jack Starrett
Director: Mel Brooks
Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Kahn), Best Original Song ("Blazing Saddles"), Best Editing

Boy, was this ever a different experience than I've had watching movies for this blog up until now.

I've actually seen this movie before, but the only time I saw it all the way through was back when I was a kid. I caught it again on cable back in the 2000's but had to turn it off before it was over (and came in in the middle anyway), so a re-watch was definitely necessary and I'm very glad I got the chance. What a hilarious movie.

This was the third film from Mel Brooks, that great spoof-master who has been called one of the greatest comic directors of all time, and this was made back when he was actually making original movies that spoofed ideas or genres, rather than spoofing films directly, such as Spaceballs (Star Wars), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (The Adventures of Robin Hood and  Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) or Dracula: Dead and Loving It (all Dracula movies but especially the old Universal film).

Blazing Saddles, though, isn't just a parody of westerns. It also calls out the western genre for its romanticizing of a pretty rough time period and area, often behaving as if it was all crusading lawmen and sweet-souled cowboys. This movie shows in stark detail how settlers were often uneducated, inbred, racist morons, corrupt politicians definitely already existed, and the gangs that ride into town to beat the men and rape the women were often doing so on a land baron's orders.

Bart (Cleavon Little) is a "freed" slave who now works with a crew of other former slaves building a railroad. When it turns out that railroad's current plans take it through a patch of quicksand, land developer Hedley LaMarr (Harvey Korman, who continually has to correct people who call him by the name of Algiers's leading lady) decides to divert it through the town of Rock Ridge, but the townspeople refuse to vacate, even after he sends in outlaws to harry them.

He decides the best thing to do is answer their request to the governor for a new sheriff by sending someone whose mere presence will make them leave of their own volition; a black man and former slave, Bart himself.

I don't know why I'm describing this plot. At this point, I'm sure you've seen it. It's a comedy classic, and a deserved one, managing to include social commentary without beating you over the head with it, or focusing on it at the expense of the comedy.

But it's part of this blog because of the performance of well-loved comedienne and actress Madeline Kahn, a regular of Brooks's films, who portrays seductive singer Lili von Schtupp (google the word), whom Hedley sends in as a means of controlling Bart without force. Ms. Kahn is always funny, and always a delight to watch, and her scenes are among this film's best, but was this really an Academy Award-winning performance? Truthfully, I don't know. I certainly think the role wasn't exactly something she could do much with. Just be seductive and sexy, speak-sing a song about being tired of all the men she's had, and...well, I've just about said it all. In my opinion this is nowhere near Kahn at her best; if you want to see that, watch her in Clue, which I still say is one of the funniest movies ever made and she's a big part of the reason why. I would have nominated her for that one, but I suppose I can't fault the Academy in 1974 for not knowing that film was coming. I can, though, for nominating her for seemingly no other reason than that she's Madeline Kahn, and had just come off a successful (Oscar-nominated) performance in Paper Moon.

What's really funny is that as I was watching this, I kept thinking to myself "this is really funny, and socially relevant, but you could never make this movie today. Some idiot would call it racist." And the very next day I saw that someone had. I don't want to get political, but if you can't see that this movie is showing us how dumb racism is, then you're part of the problem. This movie shows racist settlers as stupid and inbred (everyone in town of Rock Ridge is named is "Johnson") while Bart's the only one in town with brains. I'd say this movie has done more to fight racism than a thousand Twitter warriors, but all people in today's world can see is the uncensored use of the N-word. What I'd love to see Brooks do is re-release this movie with a vary obvious dub of one person (for all characters) boredly saying "n-word" over every use of the slur in the film. It might drive the point home even further.