Blazing Saddles (4½ Stars)

I admit it. After watching "Django Unchained" I couldn't resist the temptation to watch "Blazing Saddles" again. It's been a few years since I last watched it and I wanted to see it again. Apart from that, after the last depressing film this morning I needed to watch a comedy to cheer myself up.

The first time I heard about "Blazing Saddles" was in my late teens through a friend called Nick (Nicholas Keane). He told me that whenever he wanted to impress a new girlfriend he took her to see "Blazing Saddles" in the cinema. I have no idea how that was possible. Maybe it was being shown for a long period of time at a cinema in Birmingham? I know that, for instance, "Ryan's Daughter" was shown for six months at a cinema. I can't imagine anything like that being done today. Anyway, I never felt inclined to see the film because I associated it with Nick's romantic flings.

Then I went to study in West Berlin. I liked the German way of having film seasons on specific directors. For instance, every day a different film directed by Ingmar Bergman was shown. Then films directed by Mel Brooks were shown. I didn't even realise that I was going to see "Blazing Saddles" because it had been renamed in Germany to "The wild, wild west". Don't you just hate it when they rename films?

The film impressed me greatly, and I could understand why Nick liked to take his girlfriends to see it. It's a western parody, and it's just funny from beginning to end. A black man is appointed sheriff in a racist town in Texas. As in "Django Unchained" the N word is used abundantly. The film starts slowly, which is why I deducted half a star, but builds up momentum throughout. The final 10 minutes are a masterpiece.

Here's the German film poster. I prefer it to the original American poster, apart from the film being renamed. If you look carefully it does say "Blazing Saddles" at the bottom left.