Blazing Saddles

baby please, i'm not from havana.

after reading many Abbott "jokes" on ILE, it makes total sense that she likes "Not Another Teen Movie" more than "Blazing Saddles."

Blazing Saddles = a movie with a lot of good stuff that is also not a good movie.

chaki, oh, you. Oh you.

teehee

you know ... morons.

Where the white women at?

I think it's one for the elders; a lot of the humor is quite dated now.

yeah, fuck the Marx Brothers too!

Call me an elder, I love Blazing Saddles

I used to rate it with Young Frankenstein. I know better now. Still, "I Get a Kick Out of You" for the win.

Auf wiedersehn, baby...

They said you was hung!

And they were RIGHT!!!

Gentlemen, we've got to save our phoney-baloney jobs!

i didn't get a harrumph out of that guy.

Wow. Not Another Teen Movie, huh. Wow.

I am crappy?

I think so.

Can we narrow this down to my taste in eat-up-an-afternoon lazytime movies? Not that I mind being generally crappy.

Can we narrow this down to my taste in eat-up-an-afternoon lazytime movies?

See, now this makes me even angrier. I haven't spent an afternoon just watching movies in MONTHS.

"not another teen movie" is terrible and unfunny anytime of the day.

as is Blazing Saddles.

Your statement brings me relief.

i think NATM is funny & BS is less funny that its rep but abbott yr statement is still preposterous, sorry

No one has to agree. I do not enforce challops.

I have not seen NATM but I have seen Blazing Saddles and I thought it was shit. The fact that it happens to be a Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder film does not make it less so.

this movie really doesn't stand up as well as YF.

i mean i guess i respect it and all but it didn't make me LOL. sure a lot of that has to do with how many ppl ripped it off but still.

yf is an absolute classic but bs has more cutting social commentary? i guess thats what you mean by it not standing up as well tho, not that its even close between the two

If you 'respect' a movie like Blazing Saddles, I think you may be missing the point.

i dissagree. there is actually some surprising depth to blazing saddles in addition to the hijinx, which i think are mostly funny but apparently many people do not

See, I know from some AMC special it is supposed to have some Important Social Commentary, but what? People hated black people? It was totes okay to make fun of gay people?

Westerns were inaccurate?

abbott i fucking hate amc & have not read any crit of blazing saddles so its not like im trying to tow any line but ill refer you to this scene which is one of my faves, despite not being partic LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4YLuv0k4jk

a scene like that is unrelated to anything you mentioned & has way more depth than any in YF & you gotta realize that even around the time of this movies filming some newspapers still referred to blacks as 'negros' & this followed v quickly on the 'western' era, etc; so yes i do think the mocking of social & filmic constructions is pretty fantastic as well

also refer you to morbs quoting of the "morons" punchline

That line wz very good.

I guess I just don't get the '70s and race.

Like that one SNL sketch w/Chevy Chase where it's a 'negroid'/'honky' escalating nameslinger. I watch it and get two replies:
1. Wow, sure couldn't do that today! WOW.
2. ... ... ...?

I will never understand what is allegedly "funny" in Mel Brooks movies...

big surprise: dell doesnt get it

Me either. Except in 'History of the World,' the "You can't Torquemada anything!" line.

Do I have to be blazed to get the Saddles, chaki?

waitasec abbott you dont like young frankenstein either???

I've only seen Blazing Saddles & History...

xposts

No, I just don't know how to write clearly. The thing is, I "get it", but I don't find it to his films to be funny. Didn't think so as a kid; don't think so now.

maybe the problem is abbz just doesnt have enough respeck for gene wilder

big surprise: dell has no sense of humor

Well for fucksake, watch Young Frankenstein!

I love Gene Wilder so, so much, but yeah, I didn't dig the Sherlock Holmes one either. He is by far the most wonderful and redeeming part of those movies, but he still can't make up for the flat jokes around him. (NB have not seen his stuff w/Richard Pryor).

Is YF the one with 'Abbie Normal'? Teachers would always call me that.

We have puritanical ears.

we don't show nipples either

well, strictly you just charge for them on HBO, seems like the American way

monetizing nipples since 1993

Mad Men has nipples

curious what you thought of Coonskin Morbz

it's not really...funny?... but it certainly has its moments and drew quite a nerd audience across the racial spectrum at BAM.

it's pretty bleak

Instead of bleeps, they should just do this in all cases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZ9ku_wInw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZ9ku_wInw

the farting around the campfire scene is a special blend of nothing happening at all on television

BS is on TV all the time, just bleeped

1981 (1982?) dubbed TV-version featured the old lady growing "Out of my way, n-----!" so as not to offend people with anuses

The farting scene is a whole load of nothing in any version I've ever seen

When it was shown on network TV in the 80s, the farting was masked by horse whinnying, but the n-word stayed put.

xxpost GROWLING

you need to understand '40s/50s westerns to 'get' the farting

Are you even allowed to make TV comedy without farting these days?

Farting simply hadn't been seen/heard in films or TV at all up to that point. As difficult as it may be to imagine now, it was revolutionary for 1974.

a wind of change blowing thru cinema

none of this makes it funny tho

xp a breath of fresh air

none of this makes it funny tho

there's no answer for that. but there never is, regardless of where that opinion is aimed.

need lex to weigh in on this

not funny

harrumphing becomes darraghmac

Every since we had done The Producers, Gene was my best friend. So he knew I'd cast Gig Young as the Waco Kid; Gig had won the Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don't They, so he was considered a dramatic actor. But if you see some of the stuff he did earlier, like the Doris Day movies he was in, you'd see he had a real light comic touch. And the Kid is a alcoholic, and so was Gig. He knew how to do it.

Then we have the first day of shooting, he literally started throwing up green stuff all over the set. I thought, "We aren't shooting The Exorcist, are we? I think something's wrong here." I sent him to the hospital, and called Gene in tears. I heard him sigh over the phone: "I know, Mel, I'm the Waco Kid, you need me, I'll be there." This was a Saturday; he flew out on Sunday, tried on the costume, tried on the gunbelt, tried on the horse … [laughs] it all fit. By Monday, he was shooting the scene where he's hanging upside down next to Cleavon. It all worked.

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/mel-brooks-on-gene-wilder-and-making-blazing-saddles-w436989

Finally watched this. Grinned several times, laughed twice I believe. It passes by amiably even with the number of scenes that don't contain any jokes, just bits of plot mechanics. But maybe kind of a "you had to be there'' movie for me, very different from the ease with which I've gotten right into ths sprit of Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety

Which were your two laughs?

Ummm... one was definitely the Gene Wilder fast-draw gag up against the big group of toughs. The other, hrm, maybe one of the bits with the Gabby Hayes type, or one of Madeline Kahn's ''wed wose'' lines, not sure. Idk in general I was expecting something denser with jokes, but it's more one of those movies with just a generally comical atmosphere, too laid back to really yield belly-laughs but usually leaving you sitting there more or less comfortable to be spending an evening with this likeable cast. Maybe if I'd seen more old Westerns I'd notice more cliches being sent up?

It's fine - but its place in ''all time funniest movies'' lists really does leave me scratching my head.

I was expecting something denser with jokes

The first 5 minutes alone includes "I Get A Kick Out Of You," the cowboys singing "Camptown Ladies," "my grandmother was Dutch," "tell the governor I said 'ow'" plus a bunch of others. I think it's physically impossible for this movie to be more dense with jokes.

One joke that didn't make it, under threat of an X rating:

"Oh, it's twue! It's twue, it's twue!"

"...you're sucking on my arm."

idk, I think Young Frankenstein is denser, and then something like Airplane IMO really sets the bar higher by piling on more visual and background jokes. Not every comedy needs to be a high-density thing obviously!

Also, I'd have to go back and check but I'm not convinced those are all in the first five minutes, since even setting up and delivering the "I Get A Kick Out of You" and "Camptown Ladies" bits took quite a bit of screen time. But I'm sure if I'd been laughing at any of that it wouldn't have felt as sluggish and pokey as it did. "Tell them I said 'ow'" was cute though.

yf is less dense with jokes imo but they are far better integrated into plot

Yeah, probably more like 10 minutes...and you're right, it doesn't have the background-gag thing of something like Airplane! (the series Angie Tribeca is the most joke-dense show or film I've ever seen).

I don't see it as sluggish so much as working up to some of the jokes; if there's a joke, or a background gag, immediately before the horse gets punched out, the horse getting punched out isn't nearly as funny.

xp

otoh, Airplane! makes Blazing Saddles look directed.

I will definitely allow that I was probably expecting a different style of direction/editing - there are a fair number of superfluous reaction shots (to things like the horse-punching) which are probably there to give the audience time to laugh, and I get that, it just didn't work so well for me in a movie that often seems to be expending a lot of effort to get us to where the next gag can happen.

I'm thinking of things like all the cutaways to the bad guy going "Well that last plan didn't work, time for another approach - I've got it!" where you really don't need that at all, and I guess they tried to turn those into comedy scenes by having him leer boringly at Madeline Kahn, or having him really want his rubber frog to bathe with... Oh, my sides. Or, like, when Cleavon Little is mobilizing the different parties for his overnight plan at the end, I feel like a long stretch goes by with almost no gags at all - just plot mechanics played about as they would be in a non-comedy film (though I did get a kick out of the one townsperson really painstakingly walking through the plan that everybody else has already grasped).

I'm thinking of things like all the cutaways to the bad guy going "Well that last plan didn't work, time for another approach - I've got it!" where you really don't need that at all, and I guess they tried to turn those into comedy scenes by having him leer boringly at Madeline Kahn, or having him really want his rubber frog to bathe with...

Froggy bit was fun silliness, thought it's not my favorite bit. But "Why am I asking you?" is so perfect.

One thing I loved about BS when I rescreened last summer was the Looney Tunes-like anarchy of the final act--the fight bursting onto the musical set, chasing Headley into the movie theatre, going off in the limo at the end--not only are you laughing at the gags, you're laughing at the audacity to go there in the first place.

Yeah, I enjoyed those moves also - though very unsure how to take the gay stereotyping of the musical bit.

I think you were OTM about this being a "you had to be there" kind of movie

Maybe I have an odd family, but I always saw this as a classic Jewish family movie, the sort of thing you all watch together after Christmas dinner when you're all too tired to talk anymore. The grandparents dig the Yiddish jokes and the slapstick, the parents dig the filthy stuff, the kids love the farting and the horse-punching (and the filthy stuff), and everyone loves Slim Pickens being hit on the head with a spade.

Later as an adult I just appreciate the incredible laid-back chemistry in the quieter Cleavon Little/Gene Wilder scene.

Offhand the only dud aspect I can remember is Mel Brooks's character mugging, although he gets some amazing reaction shots out of Pickens and Harvey Korman.

Korman is the film's secret comic weapon.

Don't know how much of a secret that is tbh.

In that no one ever talks about his performance (at least not to the extent of Wilder, Kahn, etc).

its a badly written character and the performance doesnt save it

"Student?"

can't believe Mel didn't swipe the scalping gag at 12:25 here

(Buster Keaton plays the Indian chief)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ZESmgxjUc

So, um, kill your idols. I hadn't seen Blazing Saddles in over 30 years and over the decades whatever I recall about it just got tossed into the "you don't need to have an opinion about this" bin in my head. So what the hell... ungh. Felt like a slog - older style gags that are more schtick than satire. (biases: I was always a Get Smart/YF guy and I fucking love The Twelve Chairs)

Definitely need to rewatch The Twelve Chairs at some point.

is the title a double entendre for farts?

Blazing Saddles has definitely aged badly. But I could never hate a movie that makes room for a Richard Dix joke.

If I could add one gag scene to Blazing Saddles, I'd love to see Dick Shawn show up in his 'hey daddy o beatnik' persona dressed as Eastwood's "Man with no name". Then have it end up with a gun showdown between him and Sherriff Bart in the middle of the main street.