Blazing Saddles [30th Anniversary Special Edition]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Vulgar, crude, and occasionally scandalous in its racial humor, this hilarious bad-taste spoof of Westerns, co-written by Richard Pryor, features Cleavon Little as the first black sheriff of a stunned town scheduled for demolition by an encroaching railroad. Little and co-star Gene Wilder have great chemistry, and the delightful supporting cast includes Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, and Madeline Kahn as a chanteuse modelled on Marlene Dietrich. As in Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), and High Anxiety (1977), director/writer Mel Brooks gives a burlesque spin to a classic Hollywood movie genre; in his own manic, Borscht Belt way, Brooks was a central player in revising classic genres in light of Seventies values and attitudes, an effort most often associated with such directors as Robert Altman and Peter Bogdanovich . Some of this film's sequences, notably a gaseous bean dinner around a campfire, have become comedy classics. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Features:
  • All-new 30th anniversary digital transfer
  • Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1
  • Scene specific commentary by Mel Brooks
  • Documentaries: "Back in the Saddle" and "Intimate Portrait: Madeline Kahn" (excerpt)
  • Black Bart: 1975 pilot episode of the proposed TV series spin-off
  • Additional scenes
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Languages: English & Espanol
  • Subtitles: English, Francais, & Espanol

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Editing - 1974 (John C. Howard, Danford B. Greene)
•     Nominated Best Song - 1974 (Mel Brooks, John Morris)
•     Nominated Best Supporting Actress - 1974 (Madeline Kahn)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Cleavon Little - Bart
       Gene Wilder - Jim, the Waco Kid
       Slim Pickens - Taggart
       Harvey Korman - Hedley Lamarr
       David Huddleston - Olson Johnson
       Mel Brooks - Governor Lepetomane
       Alex Karras - Mongo
       Madeline Kahn - Lili Von Shtupp
       Burton Gilliam - Lyle

• Director:

  Mel Brooks

• Producer:

  Michael Hertzberg, Peter W. Wooley

• Screen Story:

  Andrew Bergman

• Screenwriter:

  Andrew Bergman, Mel Brooks, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, Alan Uger

• Cinematographer:

  Joseph Biroc

• Songwriter:

  Mel Brooks

• Composer (Music Score):

  John Morris

• Songwriter:

  John Morris

• Editor:

  John C. Howard, Danford B. Greene, Andrew Horvitch, C. Timothy O'Meara

• Production Designer:

  Peter W. Wooley

• Set Designer:

  Morrie Hoffman

• Costume Designer:

  Thomas S. Dawson, Vittorio Nino Novarese

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Gene S. Cantamessa

• Makeup:

  Terry Miles

• First Assistant Director:

  Alan Uger

• Choreography:

  Alan Johnson

• Musical Performer:

  Frankie Laine

REVIEW:

• Mel Brooks at his ribald, tasteless best, Blazing Saddles stands out as one of the all-time great film spoofs. Sparing no one from his outrageous brand of humor, Brooks proved he was an egalitarian when it came to making fun of people, regardless of skin color or religious persuasion: where blacks may come off as stereotypical, whites are seen as just plain stupid and ignorant. Beyond its over-the-top humor and genre revision of the Western, Blazing Saddles boasts some great performances, with Madeline Kahn, Gene Wilder, and Slim Pickens doing some of the best work of their careers. It also features a number of scenes that have elevated the film into the realm of the comedy classic, perhaps most infamously the one involving beans, a campfire, and the most gratuitous display of flatulence ever to cloud a movie screen. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi