"My name is Jim, but most people call me...Jim." One of the funniest films ever made, Mel Brooks' raunchy classic Blazing Saddles shamelessly spoofs the western genre, in the process becoming a bit of a classic in that genre as well. With a wonderful cast that includes Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, and Brooks himself (in dual roles as both the corrupt/absentminded/horny/stupid governor William J. LePetomane, and as a Yiddish-speaking Native American), and featuring a script penned by (amongst others) Richard Pryor (who appeared in many films with Wilder), this is a true gem.
The movie is about the attempt of the corrupt State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (not to be confused with actress Hedy Lamarr) to drive the citizens of the town of Rockridge (where everybody has the last name of Johnson) out so he can build railroad tracks through it. To help drive out the citizens, he sends a band of his cronies to attack the citizens, and then sends them a new sheriff. The sheriff, to the citizens' dismay, is black. The film then goes through a dizzying array of gags involving candygrams, Mexian banditos, the Ku Klux Klan, paddle balls, and culminates in the literal destruction of the fourth wall (look it up if you don't know what it is).
On a side note, Madeline Kahn's character is named Lili von Shtupp. To those of you who don't know, "shtupp" is a Yiddish word which describes the act of fornication (guess what word is intended).
Rating: 100/100
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