Blazing Saddles (1974)

The humour of this film is way beyond what you'd think was possible for the 70's. Even in the modern age if this film was produced now it'd still be considered a work of genius

I doubt if there's much left to say about this quasi-classic either pro or con. I saw it some thirty years ago and then again last night and I laughed more or less in the same places and shrugged and sighed in more or less the same places. Brooks is similar to the early Woody Allen in that his movies are a string of one-liners a la Neil Simon also but the difference is that both Brooks and Simon are using one-liners to punctuate a plot (Simon) or plot-of-sorts (Brooks) whilst in Allen's case the early movies were a string of one-liners in search of a plot. In this case Brooks has taken every cliché in the 'western' canon and then p****d all over it and added the odd surreal touch. For example Madelein Kahn's brilliant send-up of Marlene Dietrich is authentic in all but the 'adult' lyric; it's set in a saloon, much like the one in Destry Rides Again, saloons employed singers so what's the beef. Nothing serious it's just that the sequence has little or nothing to do with what's going on. On the other hand the brilliant scene of the Count Basie orchestra playing one of their signature hits, April In Paris in the middle of East Jesus with no audience is pure surreal.It's let down a tad by the Pirandello-type ending but then how else could you end something like this. Still highly watchable.

Mel Brooks found a way in 1974 to direct two of the greatest comedies of all time. And in that one year, he found a way to cram as many movie parodies, and not have any overlap, as any director can in Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. What Young Frankenstein was to the 1930s horror movies Blazing Saddles was to the Westerns of the 1960s. But this one is of the funniest movies of all time, and for two such movies by the same director, with the same star, to come out the same year, to be on that list is quite an achievement. Now, the story, The residents of Rock Ridge (all named Johnson) need a new sheriff. They get one, Bart, played by Cleavon Little, who happens to be black. The film doesn't have much shock value anymore but it's still funny to watch and probably always will be, thanks to characterizations in here. On the negative side, especially if don't know Brooks does whatever he can to get a laugh and isn't all that political, this film might be too politically- correct with its reverse racism, bias against religion and overly crude situations. Overall, a very nice movie with the nice story.

Mel Brooks here. If you've watched a bit of his work, you know the sort of humor we're dealing with here. This is your thick, and I mean THICK, old timey New Yorker humor that thinks anything over-the-top and outrageous is the good kind of silly, that mindset where laughter should be provoked rather than earned, like it's therapeutic - ah come on, just laugh a little will ya ! And although his work can sometimes really be funny, and I don't always disagree with that take on humor, this here is just lazy, lazy, lazy. This is self-indulgent and even more. Clearly, however different we may be from one another, this certainly can't be considered strong humor when it's so obvious, so blatant, and tries so hard. It may have Gene Wilder, it may have guns n a Western Spaghetti setting to work with, and some okay gags, but it's certainly no 8/10. Won't spend too much time commenting this, I'm done here.