Review of Blazing Saddles

Movie #31 - Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles is a Mel Brooks movie that focuses around a town named Rock Ridge. Rock Ridge is a town that sits right in the center of an area where government officials want to build a railroad. The government officials see that Rock Ridge needs a new sheriff, so they send a black man - thinking that sending a black sheriff will cause mass chaos in the town, and they will all leave...therefore opening up the area to build the new railroad. However, the new sheriff ends up saving the town and earning their respect. Yeah, that's basically a quick summary of Blazing Saddles.

Mel Brooks is known for his off-color humor, and he doesn't skimp on it in this film. I don't know why people made such a big deal when Quentin Tarantino used the N-word so many times in Django Unchained because Mel Brooks uses it just as much...and this film was made almost 40 years ago. I guess it could be argued that Mel Brooks uses it for humor, whereas Tarantino was using it just to use it - but I disagree because Tarantino was using it to identify with the time period...as is Mel Brooks. White people didn't have filters back then. Heck, some of us still don't have filters when it comes to racial conversations. The reason I don't mind the racial slurs in Mel Brooks' movies is because he has the opposite race react to it in an unexpected way (like they're smarter than the people using the racial slurs). For example, the ignorant white cowboy ordering around the railroad workers in the beginning of the movie asks the black men to sing a slave song. The men proceed to sing "I Get a Kick Out of You" and harmonize beautifully - choreography and all. That response from the black men is what makes a Mel Brooks movie funny. Instead of singing a traditional slave song, they sing a jazzy song from an era that hasn't even happened yet (seeing as this takes place in the late 1800's-early 1900's).

This movie is definitely not as funny as Spaceballs. Spaceballs is one of my all-time favorite comedies. Maybe that's why I don't enjoy Blazing Saddles as much...because I'm holding it up to the high standard of Spaceballs. It's still a good Mel Brooks film, though. Gene Wilder is a great choice for casting. When I really think about it, what I believe I love about Mel Brooks films is that he makes his audience aware that they're watching a movie. In Blazing Saddles, he has the fight between the cowboys and Rock Ridge residents burst onto the set of a musical in production on the Warner Bros. studio lot. Then that fight bursts into the cafeteria where the actors on the lot eat. I love it. It makes all of the corny humor even more funny because you understand that Mel Brooks is smarter than the comedy genre. He is making fun of film and comedy, and the audience realizes it as soon as that moment happens when he breaks, what theatre folk call, the "fourth wall" and makes the audience aware of his awareness that the jokes are corny.

TRUTH.

Overall, I give Blazing Saddles 3 out of 5 stars.