We have Harvey Korman’s Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (Hedy Lamarr reportedly sued WB, which settled), depicted as not only racist, but thoroughly and pleasingly corrupt. But since Brooks was out to make fun of everything, no cow (or horse, as in the one punched out by Alex Karras’ Mongo) was too sacred.
There are also parodies of Motown, black church choirs and other elements of African-American culture that no other white director of the period would have dared highlight. BLAZING SADDLES came along at a time when Blaxploitation titles had been around for a few years, so Brooks and his team have fun exploiting the loving close-up usually devoted to the clothes and ride of, say, SUPERFLY (Gordon Parks, Jr., 1972), here bestowed on Little’s horse, gun and fly buckskin outfit. held out for Cleavon Little, who makes Black Bart work in both 18, the two time frames in which this surrealistic comedy actually exists.
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At one point the movie was going to star James Earl Jones, and Brooks supposedly fought hard to cast co-writer Richard Pryor, who was no more than a stand-up comedian when the film was being assembled. There has to be some irony in this serious subject being visited solely by comedian Mel Brooks, but he makes the most of the opportunity. Still shocking in its frequent and pointed use of the N word, BLAZING SADDLES is one of the only Hollywood movies to deal openly and squarely with the racism rampant in our nation’s history, particularly in its move westward. I don’t think I had seen BLAZING SADDLES since close to its original release more than 35 years ago, and it’s a pleasure to note how funny it remains.
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