Blazing Saddles - Special Edition Video

Average Rating:

This is too bad because Blazing Saddles shows that such language, given the right context, can actually combat bigotry by showing how stupid it really is. Cleavon Little, as Sheriff Bart, and Gene Wilder, as The Waco Kid, are presented as islands of sanity in a sea of ignorant, racist townspeople. The 'n' word is thrown out repeatedly, but is intended as an insult to the people who say it rather than a slur against blacks. Mel Brooks, a very liberal Democrat, recognized that racism is offensive and nasty in nature and showed it in its true light in Blazing Saddles. As a result, the film does more to ridicule racism and bigotry than most serious "message films" on the same subject ever could.

Unfortunately, the corporate suits who now run the big studios are more worried about image and profits than producing quality movies. As long as a film offends as few people as possible and appeals to as many members of the general public as possible (preferably between the ages of 18 and 35), the executives like it -- even if the film has no originality or artistic merit at all. As a result, films like Blazing Saddles and TV shows like All in the Family are taboo these days. Hollywood has lost a lot of daring and courage since 1974. See Blazing Saddles and you will realize just how much.

Politically incorrect and loving it, "Blazing Saddles" holds up as a comedy nearly 30 years after its release, and maybe even has gotten funnier as Americans get more uptight. Heaven help us if we lose our ability to laugh at the outrageous.

And while the bathroom humor (and the campfire scene) gets all the notice, there are some very subtle jokes in the film, such as the "laurel and hardy handshake" and "Thank you, Van."

As for extras ... there's not much. A trailer, both widescreen and cropped versions, and an monologue by Mel Brooks that plays over the first half of the movie. It's not scene-specific, but it's worth listening to. For instance, Gene Wilder wasn't even supposed to be in the movie. To find out who was, and why Wilder got the part ... listen to the interview.

This film cries out for a special edition. A scene-specific commentary by Brooks and co-writers Andrew Bergman and Richard Pryor. A making-of documentary. The scenes that were edited into the TV version of the movie (like the diving scene and the governor's visit to the fake Rock Ridge)...

Villianous Harvey Korman is Hedy ("That's Hedley!") Lamarr and he wants to run a railroad through Rock Ridge, a town where all the men are named Johnson. He recruits Slim Pickens and his flatulent cowboys to terrorize the place and talks governor Mel Brooks into appointing Cleavon Little sheriff, thinking the racist townspeople would never allow a black man to hold that post. So Alex Karras punches a horse, Gene Wilder shoots pistols out of about a hundred cowboys' hands in a third of a second and Madeline Kahn plays a Marlene Deitrich soundalike who cavorts with anachronistic Wehrmacht infantry during the climactic battle, which is so titanic, it spills right out of the movie onto the movie lot and involves flaming male dancers in tuxes and a commissary food fight.

This is totally uninhibited fun and one of the few gag-a-second films where every single gag is funny. Not only that, the performances are brilliant, especially Kahn's, though Little and Wilder make a charming team, and Korman really chews up the scenery. Even underappreciated Dom DeLouise has a hilarious cameo.