The other day, a woman in a Facebook movies forum asked if she should see Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” I encouraged her to see it, even though I am not a fan of the film.
For my tastes, Mel Brooks made exactly two perfect films, “The Producers” and “Young Frankenstein,” and a slew of wildly imperfect comedies that personify the concept of hit-and-miss. I don’t hate “Blazing Saddles” – but I only saw it once, about 30 years ago, and never had the desire to see it again.
It is impossible not to acknowledge that “Blazing Saddles” is screamingly funny when it hits the mark with original and inventive comedy. As a send-up of every possible Western cliché and as a harsh satire on racist attitudes, it is a brilliant achievement – especially when Brooks turns up as a Yiddish-speaking Indian chief.
And even when some of the characters begin to wear out their welcome with repetitive shtick, particularly Madeline Kahn’s Lili Von Shtupp and Harvey Korman’s Hedley Lamarr, they are able to rise above their material and still generate smiles, if not broad laughs.
But I find it difficult to embrace the film because it is laced with dull gags, pointless vulgarity and overdone segments that often feel interminable. While I normally have no problems with lecherous funnymen ogling big-breasted babes for comic effect, I never found Brooks’s cross-eyed Governor William J. Le Petomane funny when he leers after the considerable bosom of Robyn Hilton’s Miss Stein.
Furthermore, the film’s final 20 minutes gives the impression that Brooks and his team of screenwriters had no good idea about how to wrap up their story. The abrupt shift into the Warner Bros. musical production soundstage is utterly unfunny.
In considering the film, one has to wonder if the comedy would have been more consistent if Brooks’ original choice of Richard Pryor was allowed by the studio to play the hero Black Bart. Granted, Cleavon Little is wonderfully funny, but Pryor might have given the role a more determined edge. Still, it is hard to picture what would have occurred if Brooks’ original choices for the Waco Kid, Dan Dailey and Gig Young, did the film instead of Gene Wilder.