Review of Blazing Saddles (1974) by Matt W — 07 Jun 2015

Mel Brooks' classic western comedy still holds up today, telling the story of the small town of Rock Ridge getting a black sheriff sent to them from an unscrupulous government official who wants to profit from sending the railroad through the middle of the town.

The humor in the film is still quite good, but the pacing seems pretty lackadaisical by today's absurdist comedy standards. Still, I'll give it four stars for having some solid laughs and some classic comedic performances (particularly Gene Wilder and Harvey Korman).

Without "Blazing Saddles" there never would have been "Airplane" or "There's Something About Mary" or "Scary Movie," so this film gets major props for being what I believe is the first absurdist genre parody.

There have always ben genre parody since the dawn of film, but those parodies were never at wild as this (i.e. Count Baisie in the middle of the desert, Nazis in the old west and when the film gets absolutely meta near the end of the film and the characters break the third wall).

Though I singled out Wilder and Korman for their performances, Cleavon Little, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn, Alex Karras as Mongo and Dom DeLuise all deliver very funny performances as well. Watching this film now, it's not quite as outrageous as it once seemed, but it's still a very funny films that is still worthy it's reputation.