Deckerd Johnson's right about Gov. Johnson being right! I'm not giving up my ice cream parlor that I built with these two hands for nothing or nobody!
I said this in another thread recently, but it's easily Mel Brooks' best movie. Not only does it feature jokes that fire off a mile a minute, but it's also a sharp satire of the Western film genre. Plus, you've got to love the absurd, fourth-wall breaking finale. It's not the kind of stuff you have to be 15 to appreciate -- it's an excellent, well-written, well-acted, and well-directed film.
Another piece of great film work is his remake of Jack Benny's 'To Be or Not to Be' where he plays one of a group of Polish actors out to outwit the gestapo in occupied Poland. Played without the outrageous gags he usually uses, he shows a fantastic depth of both comedic and dramatic scenes.
In 1974 I was 15 even though I didn't see the film then. Yes, I certainly "got" many of the jokes. But I found that this film (like a lot of Mel Brooks' films, was like an early take on Family Guy style humour: a long collection of sight gags and one-liners. Sometimes it's outrageously funny and often tiresomely not. I just don't find this to be a classic that so many have praised it to be. There are quite a few other comedies I find far funnier and entertaining.
I actually didn't like it either. My Dad got it on dvd last year as a present and he loved it, and I'd always heard it was one of the most hilarious films ever so I was eager to watch it. But it just didn't make me laugh at all.
I think it's racist by today's standards. It couldn't be made today without thousands of protests against it.
It's deliberately racist. It's making a total mockery of racism. Anyone who can't see that has a real problem.
I guess there's no accounting for taste with some people. Blazing Saddles is one of the funniest movies ever made, and unlike a lot of Brooks' more obvious later films (say, from Spaceballs on), it never ceases to be funny, and the jokes don't get old after multiple viewings.
Brilliant film. I started to hear the word "draw" in my sleep. Then one day, I was just walking down the street when I heard a voice behind me say, "Reach for it, mister!" I spun around... and there I was, face to face with a six-year old kid. Well, I just threw my guns down and walked away. Little bastard shot me in the ass!!!
^^ One of the best lines in the movie.. Delivered so casually, you almost miss it.. Watched this last night on AMC (also, despite having the DVD) and while the constant censoring of certain words, it's still sooo funny.. The campfire fart scene ALWAYS gets me rolling.. My 11 year old son asked me what was so funny, so I paused (thanks DVR!) and rewound so he could watch.. He loves a good fart joke as much as anyone, but didn't see why I thought it was so funny.. He's no son of mine.. Sigh... Young Frankenstein is a fantastic movie and very deserving of all the praise it gets, but Blazing Saddles is by far the best Mel Brooks movie IMHO... "YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!"
Hell, it was racist by 1970's standards and a lot of that is damned funny. Some of the one-liners are crazily funny even when you feel you shouldn't be laughing. Except for a few lines a I started to find Harvey Korman tiresome. Slim Pickens made me laugh. I enjoyed Gene Wilder. Cleavon Little was fun. Sadly I was mostly disappointed with Madelaine Kahn. I've seen her far funnier. Her scenes in this film just flat out annoyed me. Some of the things she said were amusing, but a lot of what else she was doing just fell flat.
Calling Blazing Saddles racist shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the film, I'm afraid. First, bear in mind that Richard Pryor was one of the writers. Second, the whole point of the film was to demonstrate how stupid racism was through the comedy. Mel Brooks may have done fart jokes but he was a very serious filmmaker (he produced David Lynch's The Elephant Man, and he also had a very serious purpose in remaking To Be or Not To Be). Note the characters in the film who are racist are also idiots of the first degree. The lead character of the film is a black man who happens to be the most intelligent character in the movie. And Gene Wilder has his best friend is pretty much the only other non-racist in the movie and he too is intelligent and trustworthy. The entire purpose of the movie is revealed in Technicolor when Waco Kid comforts Bart after the old woman says "Up yours n----r." And says this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg Wikipedia describes the film as a satire on the racism inherent in old-school Hollywood depictions of the old west. Blazing Saddles uses the n-word and other racist language. But it is, at its heart, one of the least-racist movies I've seen. And much of what I mention above also goes for All in the Family. Anyone who calls that show racist misses the point. I do agree that Mel Brooks wouldn't have gotten away with Blazing Saddles (nor Norman Lear with All in the Family) in today's oppressive, Orwellian society where such words cannot be even discussed in a clinical sense. Unless you're a rapper. So thank heavens we had the good luck that Mel Brooks was working in a freer era, and as a result we not only got one of the funniest films of all time, but one of the most biting satires and condemnations of racism ever put to film. Alex
Get off your high horse. If I can get All In The Family I can certainly understand the point of the jokes in Blazing Saddles. The jokes are racist even while lampooning racism. A lot of it is underlined by Gene Wilder saying that the townsfolk were salt-of-the-earth types: morons. You can't presume that just because someone doesn't agree with how well (or not) something works they don't get what a film is trying to do. There is some genuinely sharp humour in this film, but there's also a lot of extraneous silliness that contributes nothing to it but wasting screen time.