joehomm This movie is pure comedy gold and with its racial tones is sure to be the one movie Hollywood could never ever remake due to our societies "racial sensitivity" era. Smart, racially sensitive people will laugh along at the caricatures and absurdity of the characters, their actions and their performance. Ignorant, borderline racists will see this movie as a way to justify their biases. Still, you could have switched out all of the races and sexes in this movie and it would have still be funnier than hell. Make Gene Wilder a Chinese railroad worker, Harvey Kirkman the German burlesque singer/dancer, Madeline Kahn the new sheriff of racial minority and Cleavon Little the drunken gunfighter and the comedy is still there and still racially charged, even for the 70's era. A must see tongue-in-cheek comedy classic. No for ignorant people who do not understand the context of the humor.

cinephile-27690 I only liked this at first and didn't laugh, like 1974 audiences, but re watching it with a friend I couldn't stop laughing! I saw a 3rd time later. I even counted the amount of times I laughed and came to 83- 2 more than in The Hangover. My guardian doesn't like this because it's raunchy but I can name raunchier movies-Ted, There's Something About Mary, That's My Boy, The Hangover, etc. If you need a movie to lift you up, see Blazing Saddles! Fun Fact: The farting scene was muted because it was "too risque"-more than the countless N words!

gkeith_1 Spoilers. Observations. Opinions.Hilarious. I never cared for it earlier, but upon recent viewing I am seeing why it was thought to be so funny. Whip it out. The aghast townspeople think that they are going to see Cleavon Little's chocolate private parts, but it does not happen. Harvey Korman trying to be so dastardly, so perfect, then hitting his head on the window. Madeline Kahn singing with the 20th century stormtroopers, and earlier dancing with what looks like the German Kaiser's soldiers. Mel Brooks as the stupid sex-maniac governor, painted Native American and goggled aviator. This film is dated, with old names for people, like n_____ and Indian. We have since 1974 come a long way with our sensitivities, now using African American and Native American. Historically, this film takes place in 1874, which is 100 years before the release of this film. The American Civil War ended in 1865, just nine years before this story took place. The U.S. was expanding westward, and railroad building was slowly moving westward itself. I am a degreed historian, film critic, movie reviewer, actress, singer, dancer, stage makeup artist.

brando647 I'm ashamed to say I only just saw BLAZING SADDLES for the first time last year. Until then, the only Mel Brooks I'd seen had been SPACEBALLS and ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS (and even that one I hadn't watched since high school). I'd heard all the praise and I always knew I should have made time for it, but I was always so adverse to westerns that even the promise of Brooks' antics couldn't get me to give the movie a chance. Now I've got a new tolerance for the western genre and the Mel Brooks boxed set in my collection, so I've finally watched it. And, of course, I loved it. Of course I did. I was stupid to have put off watching it for as long as I did, and now I see that all the love heaped on the film is well earned. I don't know what I was expecting. The only scene I'd ever been familiar with prior was the infamous campfire scene so I'd always kind of assumed the movie was just 90 minutes of unrelenting toilet humor. I mean, sure, it's got that too but it's so much more. BLAZING SADDLES is part spoof, part social commentary with a heavy dose of Looney Tunes thrown in for good measure. It's the sort of movie that'll comment on how minorities were handled in the nineteenth century frontier and punctuate it with a full-blown pie fight. With YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, it's one of Brooks' best films.Long before Quentin Tarantino made us shift uncomfortably in our seats with his films' casual use of racial epithets, Brooks called attention to our country's squeaky-clean depiction of the frontier in movies with BLAZING SADDLES. His movie opens right up with an opening scene featuring African-American and Asian slaves building a railroad through the American west under the watchful eye of their white masters. We're hit right out of the gate with the first "N-bomb" and it's a little shocking at first, especially when the white cowpokes start mocking them with calls for Negro spirituals. The discomforting situation is immediately defused when it's made apparent Brooks intends that the racists themselves are going to be the fools and laughingstocks. We're shown that, yes, the movie is going to have some racial content but we're not to be concerned because those hurling the insults are either evil (Taggart and his posse) or ignorant (the townsfolk of Rock Ridge). And it all culminates in people of all colors and creeds coming together under the leadership of their new (black) sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) to dispatch the evil horde of "rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, a**-kickers, s***-kickers and Methodists" who've come to run them out of their peaceful town. See, Brooks has ingrained his film with a positive, progressive commentary and seasoned it with fart jokes.Well, one fart joke anyway. The rest is Brooks' usual brand of cartoonish gags and zaniness. He's assembled a knockout comedy cast including Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, and of course Little as our hero Bart. There are more memorable moments (Bart's arrival in Rock Ridge), lines of dialogue (Bart to KKK thugs: "Where the white women at?"), and character quirks (Kahn's Lili Von Shtupp) in this movie than most other comedies I've seen. There isn't a whole lot to say in regards to a movie like BLAZING SADDLES without going into a fan rant about how much I enjoyed this gag or that. Brooks films are pretty simple in that, if you've enjoyed his other films, you're bound to enjoy this one because it's one of his best. I might even consider it his top piece of work but YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN has lodged itself in my mind deeper and deeper with every time I've watched it. I guess I would say BLAZING SADDLES is Brooks' funniest film whereas YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is his best-constructed film. It's also from an era where movies, especially comedies, didn't overstay their welcomes; it's a quick ninety-minute runtime. You're in and out and laughing your head off in no time at all. Plus, as with most of Brooks' work, the more you watch it, the more funny stuff you're bound to notice in the background that you might've missed in the last viewing because you were still laughing at some other bit.