Blazing Saddles

"...or never give a saga an even break!"

1974 1h 33m EN

👍

7.2

SOLID

★7.2TMDB · 2,171

WesternComedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Crafty railroad worker Bart becomes the first Black sheriff of Rock Ridge, a frontier town about to be destroyed in order to make way for a new railroad. Initially, the citizens of Rock Ridge harbor a racial bias toward their new protector. However, they warm to him after realizing that Bart and his perpetually drunk gunfighter friend Jim are their only defense against a wave of thugs sent to rid the town of its population.

“...or never give a saga an even break!”

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Cast

Cleavon Little
Bart
Gene Wilder
Jim
Slim Pickens
Taggart
Harvey Korman
Hedley Lamarr
Madeline Kahn
Lili Von Shtupp
Mel Brooks
William Le Petomane / Indian Chief
Burton Gilliam
Lyle
Alex Karras
Mongo

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Mel Brooks
Writers: Andrew Bergman, Andrew Bergman, Mel Brooks
Languages: English, Yiddish, German
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $2.6M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $120M — a 46.0× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

52 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Yiddish, German.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Mel Brooks, shot by Joseph F. Biroc. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by John Morris. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Danford B. Greene shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder and Slim Pickens carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Mel Brooks directs. Joseph F. Biroc behind the camera. John Morris scores. Danford B. Greene cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English, Yiddish, German.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $2.6M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $120M — a 46.0× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
352 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
4Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Yiddish, German.
5Directed by Mel Brooks, shot by Joseph F. Biroc. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by John Morris. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Danford B. Greene shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder and Slim Pickens carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "...or never give a saga an even break!".
10IMDB entry: tt0071230 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 20 themes, including "governor", "saloon", "gun", "musical".

The technical file

Cinematography: Joseph F. Biroc
Original score: John Morris
Editing: Danford B. Greene
Production design: Peter Wooley
Costume design: Vittorio Nino Novarese
Makeup / hair: Alan Fama
Sound: Arthur Piantadosi
Stunt coordinator: Al Wyatt Sr.
Runtime: 93 min · 1h 33m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $2,600,000
Box office: $119,500,000
Return: 4596% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Blazing Saddles (1974)

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Mel Brooks

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What people are saying

GenerationofSwine2023-01-12
★ 10/10
I'm married to a Millennial and that presents difficulties that are unique to her generation. Especially unique since I am Gen-X and there is that whole rejection of labels thing and her generation is obsessed with labels. And the not understanding satire or dark humor thing that plagues that generation. And, of course, the fact that my generation kind of raised ourselves and hers, well, I have to explain things like why you don't mix coloreds and whites when you do laundry. Anyway, getting her and her besties to sit down and watch anything older than 4 years is an uphill battle... again a uniquely Millennial thing. This is odd to me since I was born after this came out, and, honestly, love a lot of movies even decades older than me.... it's the new ones I don't like. So I begged, and I pleaded, and I finally got them to watch Blazing Saddles, on the basis that I actually forced my wife (at gun point, and knife point) to watch Young Frankenstein and she loved it. Blazing Saddles lasted about 10 minutes before they got upset by the racism. But they she and her best friend and her boyfriend sat it out anyway, and by the end of the movie they were throwing a fit about racism as if I sat them down to watch Birth of a Nation. Mel Brooks somehow went way over their heads... ... I'm not exactly sure that has ever happened before... ever, in all the History of the World, I'm pretty sure that has never, ever, happened before. So I found myself with an angry wife and two very angry friends all pretty much accusing me of being William Luther Pierce. Still not sure what happened there. Something went horribly wrong. This movie kind of mocks racism doesn't it? it turns it into a joke so people can't take it seriously any longer and makes the viewer think that anyone who wears a white robe is an idiot. An absolute moron. And yet their collective reaction kind of assumed the opposite. So, anyway, I slept on the couch for a while as I slowly talked her down and explained that, no, in fact this movie was AGAINST racism. That Mel Brooks is far from a racist. That, in fact, it supports equality. But I'm still very confused. I still don't know how that happened.
CinemaSerf2024-02-10
★ 7/10
I grew up watching the "Friday Western" each week on the television so am a bit steeped in the genre to which this takes an entertaining, and loving, swipe. "Hedley Lamarr" (Harvey Korman) is out to trash his own town so he can buy up the land cheaply for his railroad. What better way to drive folks away than to appoint an African-American sheriff? The shrewd "Bart" (Cleavon Little) knows full well that he has precisely no support from his community - not the sharpest tools in the box - so he signs up the mean "Waco Kid" (Gene Wilder) as his deputy. A gunslinger of ill-repute, he and his boss gradually convince the sheepish townsfolk that they can fight back against the scheming "Lamarr" and maybe even foil his not so cunning plan. My personal favourite scene has to be the wonderful imitation of Marlene Dietrich by Madeline Kahn singing "I'm Tired", but there are loads of other skits of everything from "High Noon" to "Chisum" with Slim Pickens and David Huddleston providing some genuine western credentials to the proceedings. Auteur Mel Brooks pops up once or twice, in differing guises, to add a bit of additional comedy to his already quite daft storyline that is respectful of cowboy movies but also quite potently critical of their stereotyping characters, their repetitive storylines and usually, their entirely predictable conclusions. This mixes all of that up with Little and Wilder gelling well, presenting us with a genuinely laugh out loud, occasionally slap-stick, critique of one hundred years of a theme of cinema that has probably not really evolved that much since 1874!
r96sk2025-07-16
★ 8/10
<em>'Blazing Saddles'</em> is fairly funny. The good intentions of this 1974 satire is clear to see, naturally it can come across as a bit on the nose at times but it does lead to some amusement. Cleavon Little & Gene Wilder give good performances; always nice to see the latter. Harvey Korman is the one I probably found most amusing, for example the Hedy Lamarr running gag gave me a minor chuckle each time. In fact, that scene with him and Robert Ridgely (credit to him, also) is probably the one I'll remember most from this; that and the quicksand part. Both of those aforementioned bits are at the beginning. It's certainly a film that I'd say starts stronger than it finishes. I don't mean that in a negative way, but if the run time was longer then it'll would've become an issue. The conclusion itself is bizarre, kinda a lacklustre end in truth. Just like with when I watched <em>'Robin Hood: Men in Tights'</em> earlier this month, I can see the general appeal for this Mel Brooks flick. I enjoyed both movies, with this one a notch above that one in my opinion. The two are equally worth watching, all the same.