Blazing Saddles

1/12/2023

I'm married to a Millennial and that presents difficulties that are unique to her generation. Especially unique since I am Gen-X and there is that whole rejection of labels thing and her generation is obsessed with labels. And the not understanding satire or dark humor thing that plagues that generation. And, of course, the fact that my generation kind of raised ourselves and hers, well, I have to explain things like why you don't mix coloreds and whites when you do laundry. Anyway, getting her and her besties to sit down and watch anything older than 4 years is an uphill battle... again a uniquely Millennial thing. This is odd to me since I was born after this came out, and, honestly, love a lot of movies even decades older than me.... it's the new ones I don't like. So I begged, an

2/10/2024

I grew up watching the "Friday Western" each week on the television so am a bit steeped in the genre to which this takes an entertaining, and loving, swipe. "Hedley Lamarr" (Harvey Korman) is out to trash his own town so he can buy up the land cheaply for his railroad. What better way to drive folks away than to appoint an African-American sheriff? The shrewd "Bart" (Cleavon Little) knows full well that he has precisely no support from his community - not the sharpest tools in the box - so he signs up the mean "Waco Kid" (Gene Wilder) as his deputy. A gunslinger of ill-repute, he and his boss gradually convince the sheepish townsfolk that they can fight back against the scheming "Lamarr" and maybe even foil his not so cunning plan. My personal favourite scene has to be the wonderful imitat

7/16/2025

<em>'Blazing Saddles'</em> is fairly funny. The good intentions of this 1974 satire is clear to see, naturally it can come across as a bit on the nose at times but it does lead to some amusement. Cleavon Little & Gene Wilder give good performances; always nice to see the latter. Harvey Korman is the one I probably found most amusing, for example the Hedy Lamarr running gag gave me a minor chuckle each time. In fact, that scene with him and Robert Ridgely (credit to him, also) is probably the one I'll remember most from this; that and the quicksand part. Both of those aforementioned bits are at the beginning. It's certainly a film that I'd say starts stronger than it finishes. I don't mean that in a negative way, but if the run time was longer then it'll would've become an issue. The