In order to ruin a western town and steal their land, a corrupt politician appoints a black sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.In order to ruin a western town and steal their land, a corrupt politician appoints a black sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.In order to ruin a western town and steal their land, a corrupt politician appoints a black sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.
- Nominated for 3 Oscars
- 3 wins & 6 nominations total
Jack Starrett
- Gabby Johnson
- (as Claude Ennis Starrett Jr.)
Featured reviews
Quality. many people who love this film may feel that the negative comments from others are inoffensive as this is such a funny film, I will say this. They are entitled to their opinions ...even if they are wrong. This is one of the best comedies ever made.
Firstly it's not just Mel Brooks as scriptwriter which seems to make a big difference to the quality of the film he produces (Yung Frankestein is co-written by Gene Wilder) but then you have a cast in fine form, especially Harvey Corman as the fantastic Hedley Lamarr (Not Hedy, It's Hedley!) add to that a fantastic series of sight gags and word play, with a good dose of racism ridicule thrown in for good measure (...and they is so DUMB!)and it all makes for a brilliant mix of inspired film-making.
There are numerous scenes of note, but the scene of the townsfolk looking at their work and Bart chasing after the bad guy still makes my skin cold as they are genuinely moving moments.
best visual gag though has got to be the Wako Kid versus the goons at the railroad top drawer Much Love Mike
Firstly it's not just Mel Brooks as scriptwriter which seems to make a big difference to the quality of the film he produces (Yung Frankestein is co-written by Gene Wilder) but then you have a cast in fine form, especially Harvey Corman as the fantastic Hedley Lamarr (Not Hedy, It's Hedley!) add to that a fantastic series of sight gags and word play, with a good dose of racism ridicule thrown in for good measure (...and they is so DUMB!)and it all makes for a brilliant mix of inspired film-making.
There are numerous scenes of note, but the scene of the townsfolk looking at their work and Bart chasing after the bad guy still makes my skin cold as they are genuinely moving moments.
best visual gag though has got to be the Wako Kid versus the goons at the railroad top drawer Much Love Mike
Remember the days when humanity could laugh at itself? Blazing Saddles is a film that takes us all back to a more innocent era. An era where PC was just a couple of letters stuck together. I'll get this out of the way first: To all of you pc commies out there... the racism in this film is there to MAKE THE WHITE PEOPLE THE BUTT OF THE JOKES!!!! There is not a single person of color in this film who plays a negative character. The rednecks are what this film is really making fun of. I think most people realize this (hence the 7.7), but there are still a few who don't.
This is such a funny film. From the opening scene along the railroad tracks to the shot of Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little riding off into the sunset in a limo, the film provides an endless stream of laughs. Every time a person views this film, they can notice something truly hilarious that they may have missed the last time. Mel Brooks doesn't always hit the mark with his comedy, but this film was by far his best effort.
Cleavon Little and Harvey Korman give the best performances in my opinion. I think Cleavon Little stole every scene in every film I saw him in. He died way too young, and I wish he could have acted in more films. Korman's Hedley Lamar character is a real hoot. By the end of my most stressful days at work, I often find myself talking to everyone in his voice. So evil, and so calculating! He and Slim Pickens played off each other flawlessly.
Good luck catching an un-edited version of this classic anywhere but on the DVD. Forget about any kind of an effective remake, either. Not in this day and age.
Don't miss this film! 10 of 10 stars.
So sayeth the Hound.
This is such a funny film. From the opening scene along the railroad tracks to the shot of Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little riding off into the sunset in a limo, the film provides an endless stream of laughs. Every time a person views this film, they can notice something truly hilarious that they may have missed the last time. Mel Brooks doesn't always hit the mark with his comedy, but this film was by far his best effort.
Cleavon Little and Harvey Korman give the best performances in my opinion. I think Cleavon Little stole every scene in every film I saw him in. He died way too young, and I wish he could have acted in more films. Korman's Hedley Lamar character is a real hoot. By the end of my most stressful days at work, I often find myself talking to everyone in his voice. So evil, and so calculating! He and Slim Pickens played off each other flawlessly.
Good luck catching an un-edited version of this classic anywhere but on the DVD. Forget about any kind of an effective remake, either. Not in this day and age.
Don't miss this film! 10 of 10 stars.
So sayeth the Hound.
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. And add in there the oppression of blacks during the same time, and you have a biting satire on the role of blacks in society, if not in 1974, at least the way it was in 1874. Cleavon Little (by the way, he's black) plays Bart, a slave laborer for Hedley Lamarr's (Harvey Korman in a GREAT performance as a scheming government employee) railroad who needs to cut through the town of Rock Ridge for completion. The townspeople won't sell their land, so Lamarr has the sheriff killed and replaced with Bart. He's not really welcomed into the town, but with help from Jim, the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder) he is able to earn's the town's trust. Standard plot, and a plot that does not really matter. The humor is so scatological, from so many periods of time, that we know it's a movie, and the characters in the movie know they are in a movie. Take Slim Pickens when he cries out "What in the wide world of sports is going on here?" And the final 10 minutes of the movie is just odd in any other movie, but somehow works in Blazing Saddles. So much humor is cut out of the TV versions, so don't waste your time with it. It has to be seen with the language and "sexually suggestive" scenes to be fully appreciated.
Whenever I look at this film I laugh so hard that somtimes tears come to my eyes. Brooks manages to do with this film what Young Frankenstien did to classic horror films. The thing that really works is all the in jokes laced throughout the film. This shows that the cast and crew were really having fun in writing and producing this film. But the main credit should go to the late Cleavon Little. He was perfect as Bart. He took the role when many thought it should have gone to Richard Pryor (who was a co-writer on the film). However, I think Pryor might have been a little too over the top for the role. Little played it more low key and not as militant as Pryor might have.
Also, this film was rated R when it was first released back in 1974. Today it probably would get either a P.G. or, at most, a P.G.-13 rating.
Also, this film was rated R when it was first released back in 1974. Today it probably would get either a P.G. or, at most, a P.G.-13 rating.
In its side-splitting takedown of racism and all-purpose ignorance, 1974's "Blazing Saddles" is one of the boldest and most important satires ever made. As raunchy and as ludicrous as it is whip-smart, it can claim parentage of modern-day parodies from "South Park, le film : Plus long, plus grand et pas coupé (1999)" to "Sausage Party : La Vie privée des aliments (2016)" to music industry spoof "Stadium Anthems (2018)" in their uses of obscenity, intelligence, and song to expose inane social truths.
It's the Wild West. Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) is a white business opportunist with moronic and hyper-sexed governor William J. LePetomane (Mel Brooks) in his back pocket. Lamarr wants to build a railroad through the outpost town of Rock Ridge. When he can't scare off the town folk, he incites chaos by saddling them with a black sheriff (Bart, played by the now-iconic Cleavon Little), who just days before was a railroad laborer sentenced to hanging. It turns out that the sly Bart is a rare sage in a frontier littered with dumb white people; he pairs with booze-soaked gunslinger Jim (Gene Wilder) to rally the town against Lamarr's thugs.
Wearing no seatbelt, "Blazing Saddles" rebukes the absurdity of racism with its own absurdist countermeasures. While its blueprint would never make it past present-day studio tastemakers, its defrocking of ignorance has never been better primed for mass consumption. This is a watershed comedy that presides atop any short list of film's greatest satires. - (Was this review of use to you? If so, let me know by clicking "Helpful." Cheers!)
It's the Wild West. Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) is a white business opportunist with moronic and hyper-sexed governor William J. LePetomane (Mel Brooks) in his back pocket. Lamarr wants to build a railroad through the outpost town of Rock Ridge. When he can't scare off the town folk, he incites chaos by saddling them with a black sheriff (Bart, played by the now-iconic Cleavon Little), who just days before was a railroad laborer sentenced to hanging. It turns out that the sly Bart is a rare sage in a frontier littered with dumb white people; he pairs with booze-soaked gunslinger Jim (Gene Wilder) to rally the town against Lamarr's thugs.
Wearing no seatbelt, "Blazing Saddles" rebukes the absurdity of racism with its own absurdist countermeasures. While its blueprint would never make it past present-day studio tastemakers, its defrocking of ignorance has never been better primed for mass consumption. This is a watershed comedy that presides atop any short list of film's greatest satires. - (Was this review of use to you? If so, let me know by clicking "Helpful." Cheers!)
Did you know
- Trivia(at around 45 mins) Cleavon Little was not warned about the "you know. . . . morons" line. His reaction was real.
- Goofs(at around 1h 11 mins) In the sign up scene, Hedley Lamarr fires a two shot Derringer three times without reloading. This is a parody of a common "western" goof.
- Crazy creditsThe Warner Bros. logo appears on a black screen and burns away (in a homage to the Western show Bonanza (1959)), leading into the opening credits.
- Alternate versionsThe standard cable and commercial broadcast versions omit racial slurs and some bad language. Extent of the editing is contingent on whether the TV-PG, or TV-14 version is being shown.
- ConnectionsEdited into 5 Second Movies: Blazing Saddles (2008)
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Locura en el oeste
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,600,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $119,616,663
- Gross worldwide
- $119,625,121
- Runtime
- 1h 33m(93 min)
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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