BLAZING SADDLES (1974)
50th Anniversary 4K Ultra HD + Digital
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 92 Minutes 49 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR 2160p Ultra 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, but I certainly knew it was pushing comedy boundaries. 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) 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).
If you have not watched this one in some year be prepared to be 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 duo 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, especially these days, when we need a good laugh more than ever.
Audio/Video: Blazing Saddles (1974) arrives on 4K Ultra HD in 2160p Ultra HD framed in the original 2.39:1 widescreen aspect ratio with HDR10 color-grade. This looks wonderful, the source is in terrific shape, it looks filmic with a thin layer of natural grain, textures and facial details are sharp and crisp, everything is dialed in and wonderful, no untoward digital noise reduction waxiness here folks. The HDR color-grade is pretty subtle, primaries get a slight bluish of refinement, blacks are rock solid, and contrast and depth are quite pleasing. Surprisingly we get an Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) remix ad it sounds great, even if it's not nearly a Atmos reference mix it sounds better than ever here, the music benefitting the most from the Atmos upgrade. Also provided is the Original Theatrical Mix in DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono, and I preferred it's directness to the Atmos remix this time around. Optional English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles are also provided.
Onto the extras, we start off with a (surprise, surprise) new extra for a Warner Bros. catalog title by way of the 21-min - Inappropriate Inspiration: The Blazing Saddles Effect - Featurette, featuring the likes of Jeff Garlin, Stephen Kramer Glickman, Ike Barinholtz, and critic Pete Hammond, among others, giving Brooks and his comedy classic a good and proper blow job of appreciation. Also new (I think) is the 30-min Blaze of Glory: Mel Brooks' Wild, Wild West - Featurette with Brooks looking back on the film. This may have been on the 2104 30th Anniversary Edition, but I don't own it, so it's new to me at the very least
Archival extras come by way of the Scene-specific audio commentary by Mel Brooks; the 28-min Back in the Saddle - Featurette featuring Mel Brooks, co-writer Andrew Bergman, producer Michael Hertzberg, and actors Gene Wilder, Burton Gilliam and Harvey Korman, and 10-min of Additional Scenes. It's a solid slate of extras but it is not complete, missing are extras on previous editions, these include
the 4-min Intimate Portrait: Madeline Kahn; the 25-min Black Bart: 1975 Pilot Episode of the Proposed TV Series Spin-off; and they also mind-boggling omit the 2-min Theatrical Trailer. If you're an extras junkie hang onto the previous Blu-ray edition.
The single-disc release arrives in black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring a new photoshop collage, which is not terrible, but for fuck's sake, just give us the awesome original artwork WB! There's also a Slipcover with metallic highlights, and inside there's a redemption code for a digital 4K copy of of the film.
Special Features:
- Inappropriate Inspiration: The Blazing Saddles Effect - Featurette (21:09)
- Scene-specific audio commentary by Mel Brooks
- Blaze of Glory: Mel Brooks' Wild, Wild West - Featurette (29:39)
- Back in the Saddle - Featurette (28:23)
- Additional Scenes (9:49)
- Slipcover
- Digital Copy
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