Blazing Saddles
3 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Crafty railroad worker Bart becomes the first Black sheriff of Rock Ridge, a frontier town about to be destroyed in order to make way for a new railroad. Initially, the citizens of Rock Ridge harbor a racial bias toward their new protector. However, they warm to him after realizing that Bart and his perpetually drunk gunfighter friend Jim are their only defense against a wave of thugs sent to rid the town of its population.
What critics thought
Now regarded as a classic, Blazing Saddles landed to genuinely mixed reviews in 1974 — critics who loved it celebrated its anarchic, vulgar energy, while detractors found it a sloppy pile-up of stale gags with no discipline holding it together. The central tension was whether Brooks' anything-goes approach amounted to inspired chaos or just a mess, and that split ran deep enough that the film's current reputation represents a real reversal from its initial critical standing.
“Mel Brooks squanders a snappy title on a stockpile of stale jokes. To say that this slapdash Western spoof lacks freshness and spontaneity and originality is putting it mildly. Blazing Saddles is at once a messy and antiquated gag machine.”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“a crazed grab bag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken. Mostly, it succeeds. It's an audience picture; it doesn't have a lot of classy polish and its structure is a total mess. But of course! What does that matter while Alex Karras is knocking a horse cold with a right cross to the jaw?”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“Whenever the laughs begin to run dry, Brooks and his quartet of gag writers splash about in a pool of obscenities that score belly laughs if your ears aren't sensitive and if you're hip to western movie conventions being parodied.”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“If comedies are measured solely by the number of yocks they generate from audiences, then Blazing Saddles must be counted a success ... Few viewers will have time between laughs to complain that pic is essentially a raunchy, protracted version of a television comedy skit.”
Variety
Genres
Comedy, Western
Cast & Crew
DirectorMel Brooks
StarringCleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn
ComposerJohn Morris
Blazing Saddles
3 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Crafty railroad worker Bart becomes the first Black sheriff of Rock Ridge, a frontier town about to be destroyed in order to make way for a new railroad. Initially, the citizens of Rock Ridge harbor a racial bias toward their new protector. However, they warm to him after realizing that Bart and his perpetually drunk gunfighter friend Jim are their only defense against a wave of thugs sent to rid the town of its population.
What critics thought
Now regarded as a classic, Blazing Saddles landed to genuinely mixed reviews in 1974 — critics who loved it celebrated its anarchic, vulgar energy, while detractors found it a sloppy pile-up of stale gags with no discipline holding it together. The central tension was whether Brooks' anything-goes approach amounted to inspired chaos or just a mess, and that split ran deep enough that the film's current reputation represents a real reversal from its initial critical standing.
“Mel Brooks squanders a snappy title on a stockpile of stale jokes. To say that this slapdash Western spoof lacks freshness and spontaneity and originality is putting it mildly. Blazing Saddles is at once a messy and antiquated gag machine.”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“a crazed grab bag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken. Mostly, it succeeds. It's an audience picture; it doesn't have a lot of classy polish and its structure is a total mess. But of course! What does that matter while Alex Karras is knocking a horse cold with a right cross to the jaw?”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
“Whenever the laughs begin to run dry, Brooks and his quartet of gag writers splash about in a pool of obscenities that score belly laughs if your ears aren't sensitive and if you're hip to western movie conventions being parodied.”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“If comedies are measured solely by the number of yocks they generate from audiences, then Blazing Saddles must be counted a success ... Few viewers will have time between laughs to complain that pic is essentially a raunchy, protracted version of a television comedy skit.”
Variety
Genres
Comedy, Western
Cast & Crew
DirectorMel Brooks
StarringCleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn
ComposerJohn Morris
Rent/Purchase