TBT: Blazing Saddles (1974)

One of my favorite movies as a kid was Blazing Saddles (1974). My mom shared her twisted sense of humor with me, so I grew up with Mel Brooks, Monty Python, and the like. Much like my other fave. Bugs Bunny cartoons, I didn’t get the many levels of humor and satire going on until I got older, which makes these all the more classic gems.

I recently rewatched Blazing Saddles, now that it’s 50 years old, and it still holds up. The jokes are funny, from the juvenile fart and sex jokes to the more pointed parody of racists throughout the movie. Some have said this movie couldn’t get made today, but they miss the point that it just barely got made in 1974. Mel Brooks wasn’t a big-name director yet, there were no big stars carrying the flick (in fact, co-writer Richard Pryor was supposed to star as the sheriff, but the studio considered him too risky), Hedy Lamarr sued Brooks over the joking use of her name, and the studio and distributors nearly killed the whole film once they saw it. Everyone was surprised when this movie ended up as the biggest box-office hit of that year.

Brooks has said of making it today:

“Maybe you could get away with the campfire scene with the farting. Maybe you could get away with that today. I think you could. But I don’t think you could ever get away with the ‘N’ word being done by so many white people so many times. And I kept asking Cleavon and Richard, ‘Are we going overboard here? Is this too much? Are we going to be in trouble?’ You know, Richard said the most brilliant thing, ’cause he was a very good writer and a realist. And he said, ‘You know, Mel, if the racists and the bad guys use it, then it’s perfect. But if good people use it, then you’re in trouble.'”

The comedy and social satire are what you watch this movie for, not the historical costumes, but technically this counts as a frock flick! The story is set in the American frontier of 1874, although consciously anachronistically so from the start, with chain-gang laborers singing a Cole Porter tune and the real Count Basie and his orchestra giving the sheriff a send-off.

In fact, a costume designer isn’t even credited for the whole film! Vittorio Nino Novarese is listed as “special costume designer” with Tom Dawson as “wardrobe,” and that’s it. I’m guessing most everything was rental stock, like the standard-issue western garb Bart (Cleavon Little ) wears as sheriff.

Likewise, his sidekick the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder) gets black cowboy gear.

The townspeople wear really shitty vaguely Victorian ye olde-timey western crap. But they do have hats, because hats aren’t just for losers.

As always, it’s the ladies who get more costume changes, although the subtlety Brooks shows with skewering racism doesn’t always carry through in his treatment of women. They’re often used for titillation.

Madeline Kahn is treated a little better in the role of Lili Von Shtupp, who was intended as a parody of Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again (1939). She was nominated for a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for this movie. Her musical performance is legendary, and she is a total comic genius.

The outfit she wears for her iconic stage number kinda sorta nods towards 19th-century underwear, but really, this is closer to 1970s Frederick’s of Hollywood.

She looks great though, and the song is amazing!

Mel Brooks wrote the song and lyrics, and for all his patronizing of women in his early films, if this isn’t an insightful feminist complaint, I don’t know what would be:

I’ve been with thousands of men
Again and again
They promise the moon
They’re always coming and going
And going and coming
And always too soon
Right girls?

I’m tired
Tired of playing the game
Ain’t it a crying shame
I’m so tired
God dammit I’m exhausted!

To relax, she kicks back in pink sequins, which is even less 1870s than before:

Her final number is a World War I homage, so, uh, historical, but the wrong period for this flick. Whatev!

 

 

Do you still love Blazing Saddles too?

 

 

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