Focusing on the rise of a black sheriff in the American west of 1874, Blazing Saddles is widely regarded as the most audacious comedy of Mel Brooks’ directorial career. A subversive, fearless satire bent on tackling the ever-present absurdity of prejudice, it has maintained an impressive and growing fan-base more than four decades later.
The iconoclastic, not-politically-correct Blazing Saddles (1974) is one of Mel Brooks’ funniest, most successful and most popular films. It is an unsubtle spoof or parody of all the cliches from the time-honored genre of westerns, similar to the comic attitude of numerous Marx Brothers films. Brooks’ third feature film tagline blurb advertised: “Blazing Saddles…or never give a saga an even break!” Notice in the film’s poster, the gold coin is inscribed: “HI, I’M MEL. TRUST ME.”
