Blazing Saddles

Gather around the campfire for one of the all-time great film comedies, Mel Brooks’ inspired and anarchic deconstruction of the cowboy film.

One of the all-time great comedies and the signature work of serial lampooner Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles gleefully takes a torch to the Hollywood traditions of the Wild West. Gene Wilder stars as the washed-up Waco Kid who befriends the besieged sheriff of Rock Ridge, a black convict (Cleavon Little) conspiratorially installed to enrage the local townfolk.

The unhindered anarchism of Brooks’ assault on movie conventions and decorum (including the infamous campfire farting scene) is as fresh and pointed today as it was on first release. And amid the perpetual hilarity Blazing Saddles is also a fearless and outrageous denunciation of racism and a fourth-wall-breaking deconstruction of Hollywood mythmaking.