BLAZING SADDLES (1974)
Label: WBHE
Region Code: Region-Free
Duration: 92 Minutes 51 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, David Huddleston, Mel Brooks, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Alex Karras, Claude Ennis Starrett Jr., Burton Gilliam
I remember my dad showing me the riotous western comedy-musical Blazing Saddles (1974) when I was far too young to watch, but certainly not too young to appreciate it, even though some of the jokes flew over my head at that age. It's gag-laden assault on racism that lampoons American westerns with a barrage of gut-busting, non-PC comedy that shat on good taste, and was all the funnier for it. It's been said many time since and it still holds true, I do not think this movie could get made today, I just do not seeing something this subversive and non-PC getting a wide release. The threadbare story is sort of set in 1874, opening with the railroad being built when the construction crew encounters quicksand, forcing them to re-route the tracks. Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman, The Carol Burnett Show) hatches a plan to divert the railway through the dust-bowl town of Rock Ridge, intending to run off the townsfolk so he can buy up their land on the cheap. His plan involves convincing the doofus Governor William J. LePetomane (director Mel Brooks in one of five roles!) to hire the country's first black sheriff to take the reigns in Rock Ridge, knowing it will stir up trouble there. When black Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little, Fletch Lives) arrives in the town of Rock Ridge he is nearly lynched by the all-white residents, the N-word starts flying around pretty fast, but he eventually manages to win over the inbred white folk by helping them save the town from hired cutthroat thugs lead by Lamar's henchmen Taggart (Slim Pickens, 1941) and Lyle (Burton Gilliam, Fletch), with a little help from a whiskey-soaked gunslinger known as the Waco Kid, played by Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).
I remember my dad showing me the riotous western comedy-musical Blazing Saddles (1974) when I was far too young to watch, but certainly not too young to appreciate it, even though some of the jokes flew over my head at that age. It's gag-laden assault on racism that lampoons American westerns with a barrage of gut-busting, non-PC comedy that shat on good taste, and was all the funnier for it. It's been said many time since and it still holds true, I do not think this movie could get made today, I just do not seeing something this subversive and non-PC getting a wide release. The threadbare story is sort of set in 1874, opening with the railroad being built when the construction crew encounters quicksand, forcing them to re-route the tracks. Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman, The Carol Burnett Show) hatches a plan to divert the railway through the dust-bowl town of Rock Ridge, intending to run off the townsfolk so he can buy up their land on the cheap. His plan involves convincing the doofus Governor William J. LePetomane (director Mel Brooks in one of five roles!) to hire the country's first black sheriff to take the reigns in Rock Ridge, knowing it will stir up trouble there. When black Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little, Fletch Lives) arrives in the town of Rock Ridge he is nearly lynched by the all-white residents, the N-word starts flying around pretty fast, but he eventually manages to win over the inbred white folk by helping them save the town from hired cutthroat thugs lead by Lamar's henchmen Taggart (Slim Pickens, 1941) and Lyle (Burton Gilliam, Fletch), with a little help from a whiskey-soaked gunslinger known as the Waco Kid, played by Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).
I had not revisited this one in about ten years and was not surprised, but re-delighted, by how well the comedy and satire held up, I was rolling on the floor laughing the whole while, and it's so endlessly quotable I remembered tons of the memorable dialogue. The main cast is bonkers good, I love Korman as the moustache twirling baddie, and of course Madeline Kahn's (Young Frankenstein) tasty vamp on Marlene Dietrich with saloon cabaret singer Lili Von Shtupp with a wonderful bored-of-sex cabaret number and her lustful eye on Sheriff Bart, having been sent their by Lamarr to seduce him but instead having the tables turned on her. Also, the late Cleavon Little is comic gold, his comedy chops were fantastic, and he makes for a terrific dulo with Wilder's melancholic gunslinger.
When Lamarr sets out to recruit a band of "rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, half-wits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and methodists" to scare off the Rock Ridge residents there's a job fair type applicant line-up of scumbags interviewing for it, with anachronistic baddies like the bikers, Klu Klux Klan and Nazi's showing up alongside native americans, banditos, and cowboys, and the anachronistic riot continues during the finale when the Old West gives way to the 1974 backlot of Warner Bros. with the Rock Ridge residents and horde cutthroats crossing over onto other studio sets, including a Busby Berkeley-style top-hat-and-tails musical number being directed by Buddy Bizarre (Dom DeLuise, Haunted Honeymoon) before spilling over into the studio commissary for a pie-fight, and then Wilder and Little take a taxi to Mann's Chinese Theatre to catch the end of the film. It's absurdist, madcap and wonderfully un-PC in the best possible way. I don't know how this would play to a younger audience, but I sometimes I fear that hearing the n-word over a dozen times, comedy or not, might be a bit too much for their overly delicate sensibilities, but I hope not, this is one of the funniest lampoons of all time, and I hope that fact does not elude anyone who newly discovers it.
Audio/Video: Blazing Saddles (1974) arrives on Blu-ray in 1080p HD framed in 2.39:1 widescreen. This is not a newly re-remastered edition, nor is it a re-press of the 2014 Blu-ray, but a repackage of the 2006 Blu-ray with the antiquated VC-1 encode. For it;s time it looked pretty good, I remember being pretty excited about the upgrade over my DVD back in 2006, but looking at it now it seems dated, colors are a bit muted, the VC-1 codec compression saps fine detail and textures. I am quite surprised that we did not get the new 2014 AVC encoded release, instead WB chose to lazily recycle the 2006 disc instead, it's bummer. Also not great is that we don't even get the uncompressed audio from the 2014 re-issue, we get lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 with optional English subtitles that dates back to the 2004 30th Anniversary DVD release, seriously WB?
Onto the extras, we get the same great archival bonus content that have accompanied the film since the 2004 39th Anniversary DVD set, and it does not include the 30-min Blaze of Glory: Mel Brooks' Wild, Wild West that accompanied the 40th Anniversary Blu-ray re-ssie, insert more WTFs here. Here's hoping we at least get a 50th Anniversary Edition 4K Ultra HD this year. It's great to see the flick is still in circulation but there's no need to upgrade if you currently own it on HD. My worry going forward is that since they have gone and recycled this disc already that any near-future UHD release would be 4K UHD + Digital only, no remastered Blu-ray, but we shall see.
Special Features:
- Back in the Saddle (28:21)
- Intimate Portrait: Madeline Kahn (3:40)
- Black Bart: 1975 Pilot Episode of the Proposed TV Series Spin-off (24:26)
- Audio Commentary by Director Mel Brooks
Deleted Scenes (9:40)
Theatrical Trailer (2:14)
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