Blazing Saddles
Filed Under: Film, Reviews | Article Tags : DVD review
By: The Dweeb
May 2002
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Continuing on my Mel Brooks streak from last month, I recently received this little gem as a birthday gift. Blazing Saddles has to be one of Mel Brooks’s best films. It one of those guy films that women just don’t understand. Yes its dumb, doesn’t have much of a story, and is crude, but its damn funny!
There is no way a mainstream movie like this would be made today, we are just too politically correct. The main focus on this film is based on racial stereotyping, which Mel just pounds into the ground with his brand of comedy. He pokes fun at a lot of people, showing how ignorant people can be.
He takes on the Hollywood conventions of who is good and bad, and reverses it. We have a black hero, who fends off the evil white men, who are so dumb! At one point Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) acts like the typical black character from past films. “Oh Lordy!”, you know what I’m talking about. He is probably the most intelligent character in this film.
Mel Brooks is the master of skewering a film genre. Blazing Saddles follows the typical path of the cowboy film, but he constantly sticks in elements of the modern world for comedic effect. The full orchestra in the desert playing the soundtrack for Sheriff Bart and the toll booth scene are the best. He includes all the typical cowboy movie elements, horses, booze, broads and bandits, but he takes us to an wacky Mel Brooks version.
This also gives him an excuse to break the audiences perception of the movie, by having the final climax break out into the real world briefly. That whole scene was great. Not only does he make fun of westerns, but then he takes on the entire movie industry. I love the Dom Deluise cameo as the typical Hollywood director throwing a tantrum on a movie set.
The actors he chose for all these characters are perfect matches. Cleavon Little does an excellent job, as well as Gene Wilder as the Waco Kid. These are the only two ‘normal’ characters in the movie, everyone else is so cartoonishly portrayed. Harvey Korman does Hedley Lamarr like an old time moustache twisting bad guy, and Madeline Kahn as a Barbara Walteresque Lili Von Shtupp. “More schnitzen gruben shewiff?” Its a laugh riot.
The quality of the DVD leaves something to be desired. Again, just like in Spaceballs, the transfer is nothing special. The picture was grainy, and I noticed a lot of film breaks and pixelization. Sound is also not the greatest, I could clearly see in some parts of the film it was not matched to the picture, and it had lots of background noise.
The extra features included on this disc aren’t anything to write home about. Options are few, and really the only thing worth watching is the trailer. There are some production notes, and an ‘interview’ with Mel Brooks, but that just takes the place of director commentary. It runs during the movie, so it kind of annoying. They also have some extensive bios about some of the actors and that’s about it.
Despite these shortcomings, its by far not the worst that I’ve seen. If you are really a fan, there is a more deluxe version of this disc, but its very expensive. This movie is still funny, and it hasn’t become outdated, plus its very inexpensive to add this one to the collection.
Reviewer’s Opinion: BUY IT!!
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