Blazing Saddles

About Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles (1974) is a satiric Western comedy film directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, it was written by Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, and Al Uger, and was based on Bergman's story and draft. The movie is considered one of the great American comedies of all time, coming in at number six in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list.

Brooks appears in multiple supporting roles, including Governor Le Petomane and a Yiddish-speaking Indian Chief. Slim Pickens, Alex Karras, David Huddleston, and Brooks regulars Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, and Harvey Korman are also featured. Musician Count Basie has a cameo as himself. The film, which came out only a few years after the Civil-Rights Movement, uses the ethnic slur "nigger" over 70 times (usually used by whites) but was nevertheless a tremendous success.

The story is set in the American Old West of 1874 (though it is filled with anachronistic references). Construction on a new railroad runs into quicksand; the route has to be changed, which will require it to go through Rock Ridge, a frontier town where everyone has the last name of "Johnson" (including a "Howard Johnson", a "Van Johnson" and an "Olson Johnson".) The conniving State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr — not to be confused, as he often is in the film, with actress Hedy Lamarr — wants to buy the land along the new railroad route cheaply by driving the townspeople out. He sends a gang of thugs, led by his flunky Taggart, to scare them away, prompting the townsfolk to demand that Governor William J. LePetomane appoint a new sheriff. The Attorney General convinces the dim-witted Governor to select Bart, a black railroad worker who was about to be hanged, as the new sheriff. Because Bart is black, Lamarr believes that this will so offend the townspeople they will either abandon the town or lynch the new sheriff.