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Blazing
Saddles (1974)
In Mel Brooks' iconoclastic, non-politically-correct
western spoof - one of the funniest, most successful and most
popular films, with non-stop jokes and slapstick, was an unsubtle
spoof, lampooning or parodying all the cliches from the time-honored
genre of westerns and cowboys, with much political incorrectness,
vulgarity, offensiveness and political satire:
- in the early scene of a town meeting in Rock Ridge's
white homogenous church, Reverend Johnson asked whether the townsfolk
should stay or leave the lawless town: ("Well, I don't have
to tell you good folks what has been happening here in our beloved
town. Sheriff murdered, crops burned, stores looted, people stampeded
and cattle raped! Now the time has come to act. And act fast! I'm
leaving");
- he was interrupted by a grizzly mountaineer named
Gabby Johnson (Jack Starrett), who argued unintelligibly in a speech
composed of "frontier gibberish" about remaining steadfastly
in town: ("You get back here, you old pious, candy-ass sidewinder!
There ain't no way that nobody is gonna leave this town! Hell,
I was born here, and I was raised here and dadgum it, I'm gonna
die here! And no sidewinder, bushwhacking, hornswoggling, cracker
croaker, is gonna ruin me biscuit-cutter!")
- the group decided
to petition the Governor to send the town a new Sheriff - because
every Sheriff appointed by the townspeople has been murdered
- the near-sighted
and dim-witted Governor Le Petomane (Mel Brooks) was
being advised at the same time by his own villainous and scheming
Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) to take over
200,000 acres of Indian land in exchange for a box of paddle-board
toys, and to convert a hospital (for the insane) into a gambling
casino (for the insane)
- the Governor first appeared (in his underwear),
nuzzling into bosomy secretary Miss Stein's (Robyn Hilton) cleavage
while addressing her full breasts: "Hello boys. Have a good
night's rest? I missed you"
- a new scheme was developed by the Governor and
his AG - a cheap land grab of the town of Rock Ridge where a railroad
route was about to be constructed. The AG turned
the idea of a law-and-order sheriff into his own advantage, to
panic the citizens so that they would cheaply sell out their land
to him. Their plot was to take over the town of Rock Ridge (in
the path of the railroad) by scaring off the townsfolk and replacing
them with their own thugs, led by villainous Taggart (Slim Pickens)
- as part of their scheme, pardoned
black railroad worker Bart (Cleavon Little) was to be appointed as
the new Sheriff. The assumption was that the bigoted townsfolk
would immediately leave town once they saw the black Sheriff -
thereby leaving the town vulnerable to take-over
- the naive new Sheriff Black Bart (in
a gaudy but fashionable cowboy outfit) rode into Rock Ridge to be
greeted by a welcoming ceremony - during his acceptance speech, he
warned the townsfolk as he reached down into the front of his pants: "Excuse
me while I whip this out" -
to the sound of their gaspings; when
the townspeople soon realized that he was a "ni-," they
threatened to shoot him. To divert the mob, hold them at bay and
escape, Bart held a gun to his own neck, shouting: "Hold
it. The next man makes a move, the n----r gets it...Drop it!"
- drunken former gunslinger The 'Waco Kid' (Gene Wilder),
in jail in town, met the new Sheriff; the Waco Kid explained his
past history to Black Bart: "Oh, well, it got so that every
piss-ant prairie punk who thought he could shoot a gun would ride
into town to try out the Waco Kid. I must have killed more men
than Cecil B. DeMille. It got pretty gritty. I started to hear
the word 'draw' in my sleep. Then one day, I was just walking down
the street, and I heard a voice behind me say, 'Reach for it, Mister!'
And 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! So I limped to the nearest saloon, crawled
inside a whiskey bottle, and, I've been there ever since";
soon the two would be allied together to save the town
- in the film's most notorious, vulgar and well-remembered
scene, gassed-up, wind-breaking, flatulent cowboys from Taggart's
crew sat around the night's campfire eating beans - burping and
farting incessantly - bathroom humor at its finest. When Taggart
was asked: "How about some more beans, Mr. Taggart?",
he replied with exasperation: "I'd say you've had enough!" --
play clip (excerpt):
- Taggart was pleased that the dreaded, simple-minded
brutish Mongo (ex-football player Alex Karras) was proposed as
the one to kill the new black sheriff; the thuggish Mongo entered
Rock Ridge riding an ox to threaten the town, then later punched
out a horse with a bare, single-fisted punch, but was ineffective
against Black Bart
Unique Western Characters
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The Waco Kid (Gene Wilder) and Black Bart (Cleavon
Little)
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Taggart (Slim Pickens) and AG Hedley Lamarr (Harvey
Korman)
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Mongo (Alex Karras)
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- Rock Ridge's saloon singer Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline
Kahn) delivered an exquisite parody of Marlene Dietrich's "Frenchy" from Destry
Rides Again (1939), when on stage; she performed an off-key
version of I'm Tired, parodying Marlene Dietrich's Falling
in Love Again with a world-weary Germanic, monotoned accent and
a lisp; in the lyrics, she asked one of the drooling cowboys: "Hello,
handsome, is that a ten-gallon hat - or are you just enjoying the
show?" (a variation of one of Mae West's most infamous pronouncements)
- after Lili's performance, Lamarr schemed with her
to seduce sheriff Black Bart (and then break his heart) with a parody
of Jean Harlow in Hell's Angels (1930):
("Won't you excuse me for a moment while I slip into something
a little bit more comfortable?"); after the lights were turned
out in a back room of the saloon with Bart, she asked him if black
men were "gifted," and went to investigate his physical
endowments in the dark - she was memorably impressed: "Tell
me, schatzie [affectionate German nickname meaning sweetheart, little
treasure or little dear one], is it twue what they say about the
way you people are gifted? (A loud zipper noise signaled that his
fly was opened.) Oh, it's twue. It's twue. It's twue. It's twue..." -
Lili was the one who turned out to be seduced
- meanwhile, Black Bart and the Waco Kid snooped around
the chain gang site where the railroad track was being laid, and
they learned that the railroad tracks were going to pass directly
through the town. Suddenly, it dawned on them why Lamarr was involved
in his evil scheme
- foiled again, Hedley made a request of cowpoke Taggart
to find individuals to assault the town: ("I want you to round
up every vicious criminal and gunslinger in the west. Take this down....I
want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados,
mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, half-wits, dimwits, vipers, snipers,
con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers,
hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers,
ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists") - with Taggart's
dumbfounded response: "Could you repeat that, sir?"
- in a related scene, Hedley was reviewing the qualifications
of the applicants selected to assault the town (Hedley Lamarr: "Qualifications?" Applicant: "Rape,
murder, arson, and rape." Hedley Lamarr: "You said rape
twice." Applicant: "I like rape."); nearby, in order
to get closer to see what was happening and entice two KKK members
away in order to steal their white robes and hoods, the
Waco Kid held up Bart as bait from behind a large rock as he called
out: "Hey, boys! Look what I've got here."; Bart also called
out with a mock-dumb (racially-stereotyped)
taunt: "Hey! Where are the white women at?"
- later that evening, Bart enlisted the aid of black,
chain-gang railroad workers to build an exact replica of Rock
Ridge (three miles east of the real town), and to lure Taggart
and his gang of men to destroy it instead of the real town; after
luring Taggart's men into the town, a dynamite blast sent bodies
of horses and men flying into the air; the good guys - Bart,
the Kid, the townspeople, Mongo, and the chain gang laborers
swooped down into the town to wipe out the bad guys with clubs
and hand-to-hand combat
- the film ended with an absurdist brawl between the
two sides - when the camera pulled back to show that the film was
being shot on a present-day Hollywood set in the middle of Los Angeles
- in an adjoining soundstage on the
lot, a pseudo-Busby Berkeley musical number
("The French Mistake") was being performed with an all-gay
cast of men in black tuxedos and top hats, directed by effeminate
choreographer Buddy Bizarre (Dom DeLuise); the choreographer criticized
the dancers and demanded that they watch his own flawed demonstration: "Just
watch me. It's so simple, you sissy Marys! Give me the playback!
And watch me, faggots" - the chorus sang as he stumbled around: "Throw
out your hands Stick out your tush Hands on your hips Give 'em
a push You'll be surprised You're doing the French Mistake! Voila!"
- the chaotic fighting from the Blazing Saddles set
burst through the "fourth wall", bringing two conflicting
film genres together, and degenerated into a major fight; in the
studio's commissary where bikini clad actresses, a Hitler-look-alike
(Ralph Manza), and others were eating, the Adolph Hitler character
responded to a question about how many days he had left: "They
lose me right after the bunker scene," as the place erupted
into a 'great pie fight.'
- the melee spilled out onto the streets of Burbank
and included the landmark Grauman Chinese Theatre in Hollywood; Bart
pursued Hedley who ran from the movie theatre and shot him in the
groin; then he joined his buddy the Kid to watch the ending of movie
that was playing inside -- Blazing Saddles
- the film ended with a happy conclusion - in the screened
film - as the people of the saved town of Rock Ridge said goodbye
to their black sheriff; Bart bid them goodbye with an obligatory
farewell speech about how he was moving on; he invited the Waco Kid
to join him, and they rode out of town into the desert where they
dismounted, entered an awaiting limo, and drove off 'into the sunset'
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Rev. Johnson and Gabby Johnson
Gov. Le Petomane and Miss Stein
Black Bart Entering Town as New Sheriff
Black Bart: "Excuse me while I whip this out"
The Waco Kid Explaining His Past History to the New Sheriff
Bean-Eating Campfire Scene
Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn)
Lili Seduced by Black Bart
Taggart to Hedley: "Could you repeat that, sir?"
Hedley Reviewing Applicant Qualifications: "You said rape
twice"
Buddy Bizarre (Dom DeLuise)
Film's Ending: The Kid and Bart Dismounting and Entering a Limousine in
the Desert
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