Blazing Saddles

Crossbow/Warner. Director Mel Brooks; Producer Michael Hertzberg; Screenplay Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Alan Uger; Camera Joseph Biroc; Editor John C. Howard, Danford Greene; Music John Morris; Art Director Peter Wooley

Cleavon Little
Gene Wilder
Slim Pickens
David Huddleston
Mel Brooks
Madeline Kahn

Blazing Saddles spoofs oldtime westerns with an avalanche of one-liners, vaudeville routines, campy shticks, sight gags, satiric imitations and comic anachronisms. Pic [from a screen story by Alan Uger] is essentially a raunchy, protracted version of a television comedy skit.

Although Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder head a uniformly competent cast, pic is handily stolen by Harvey Korman and Madeline Kahn. Kahn is simply terrific doing a Marlene Dietrich lampoon.

Rest of cast is fine, although Little's black sheriff doesn't blend too well with Brooks' Jewish-flavored comic style. Wilder is amusingly low-key in a relatively small role.

1974: Nomination: Best Supp. Actress (Madeline Kahn), Editing, Song ('Blazing Saddles')

(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1974. Running time: 93 MIN.

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