The Reel Rejects - FLASHBACK REVIEW: BLAZING SADDLES (1974) - First Time Watching!

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

FINALLY WATCHED THE CLASSIC MOVIE BLAZING SADDLES! Did NOT Expect such an edgy western comedy but the great Gene Wilder, Cleavon Little, & Mel Brooks deliver. Enjoy! REACTION HIGHLIGHTS on YouTube & FULL LENGTH (Sync-Up) WATCH ALONGS at Patreon.com/TheReelRejects!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, howdy, Reject Nation. And welcome to another flashback, classic review of Mel Brooks' 1974, Western satire comedy, Blazing Saddles. This is Greg's first time watching the movie and his immediate thoughts upon completions. So, hey, if you want to see the highlights from that, if you want to catch some of the best moments, go over to YouTube.com slash the Real Rejects. You can watch that over there. Or if you want to sync up with your own copy, watch along, like it's mystery science, or a commentary track. You can do that over at patreon.com slash the real rejects. Come and become a super sexy reject.

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this is Greg's review of Blazing Saddles. Here we go. I'm not expect this movie to become that hyper self-aware. I had to see if I read that right. Richard Pryor was one of the writers on this. That is kind of crazy. A lot of people wrote on this. Well, well, okay.

I didn't know anything about Blazing Saddles before going into this film. I really did it. So to be here with this film, I just sort of expected walking into a spoof comedy about the West. That's just all I kind of ever heard about it. I remember when the movie Seth Macquarland's A Million Ways to Die in the West came out. That's when I heard a lot of people going like, it's no blazing saddles, though. It's no blazing.

That's all I ever heard. So I just only assume that about this film. And I didn't feel like you got to talk about the comedy. And then also, whoa, there's a lot of other additional commentary here that I did not expect to be walking into with this film. I didn't realize just how non-politically correct it is. You know, if you don't never talk to me about Mel Brooks because I don't know anything about Mel Brooks other than I'm familiar with like, oh yeah, he's a young Frankenstein, it's baseballs. the producers. I'm actually not familiar with those movies, though, other than the association of Mel Brooks tied with those. So, yeah, it's like this, I was so surprised to be watching a film

that was so much more than just some funny movie from the 70s. Like, I could, I was trying to, I found myself kind of going in and out, thinking, how was this received at the time it came out? because it was like in the 70s at some point that this film was released. And it's so much a satire about racism. And I had no clue that that's what I was walking into here. Because at times I was going, were these jokes here just for shock value, or do they serve at actual purpose? And as I was just settling into the movie,

because I think it was around the time when he arrived into town, Bart, where the town realized, like, oh, my God, we got a black sheriff here. That's in the movie started to really start clicking for me, and it started becoming a real movie more than just a series of sketch comedies kind of like slapped together in a one. It started becoming a real movie for me around the time when Gene Wilder was introduced, the relationship with Bart and Jim started to develop. And it was even interesting seeing how that was portrayed, because, you know, You know, the interracial buddy comedy thing has been a thing around for a long time.

And I got to imagine that this was one of the first movies, or I don't know if it was the first movie, but one of the earlier ones to do it. But I really liked with that relationship how it never became the cliche of clash of white men and black man and their cultures. Like they just had an understanding for who they were as individuals. and respected. It never became about race with them, you know, other than when Jim was at the initial offset when he meets Jim and is like surprised to see a black man as the sheriff, he's, there's nothing really more beyond that. Never became about them budding heads or jokes about the difference and how they perceive things or shit like that, which is usually one of the go-to things you do within a racial buddy comedies, right? And I like that they didn't do that. They just, uh, they blew right past that. And it became a mutual respect for each other right away. And there's a natural friendship. So I think even from like the interracial buddy comedy standpoint, I really like the execution of it. And with this one, back to the actual comedy of the racist satire, it was interesting in how it was used because they were obviously taking some, like it seems like they're taking jokes at racism and, of course, Hollywood.

And some of those jokes, weirdly, the Hollywood jokes were the ones that were kind of flying over my head. Like, I believe the, the Hedley, Hetty joke is, there's an actual actress, right, Hetty Lamar? Am I correct about that? At least this is what I thought they were making fun of. I could be wrong. I remember just to remember something completely incorrect. But that's what it's not like they were making fun of. And then obviously they really break the fourth wall.

But what I thought was cool about the kind of world that this is playing in is they're using the classic Hollywood, or at least the writing in what Mel Brooks directed here is they're using the classic Hollywood background of a classic Hollywood westerns. And it feels and looks like a classic Hollywood Western. And you can kind of compare it to today with how, you know, sketch, spoof movies really started to go down in quality. Like there's so much we were far between. But there was a time where we were getting a lot of spoof comedies.

And they just started looking like cheap sketches. after a while and i thought that this still looks like a classic hollywood western film so it has like the sheen of that but it's also showing the the ugliness i would say it's sort of of the the foundation which america was built like the actual ugliness and kind of force you to look at it so that's why i actually thought some of the straightforwardness of especially of some of the comedy like with the use of the N word for example was at yeah at first like kind of shocking to hear but it started i started to click with me that i don't feel like it's actually being used for shock it's actually sort of being used as not just the use of that word but the treatment and then

you know seeing the people who built the railroads and because they start taking jabs at every single stereotype at some point in this film like every stereotype starts to take a bit of a jab at And they're pulling back a veil and showing sort of the, for the right words here, the ugliness of, of like American history and at the time in which this move is made and the fact that it still fucking exists today. So weirdly this actually has a bit of a timeless quality to it, even though it's a 70s movie, you know, a 70s comedy movie. me. But I thought that using, like I said, the sheen of classic westerns, but

with some of the ruthlessness, like they kind of seem contrasting with each other, so it really forces you to kind of look at it and examine it. So I like that there's a bit of this intellectual comedy side to it that's a little more elevated than I actually expected it to be. Like you really,

I don't know how you can make this movie today. and I was finding myself even thinking about that because it's so non-PC. It's just so non-PC and it's also anti-Hollywood at the same time. So to be doing both of those in one film, I would find it very hard for people because there's something like this, you know, I think can be really misinterpreted the wrong way. And I feel like I'm interpreting it the way it's intended to be. At least that's the, I feel like this is the way.

to interpret it and that's how at least reads to me because I think nowadays a lot of times people might try to try something like this now it could just be reading as a movie that's like trying to be anti-woke and go against cancel culture and do this kind of comedy and it feels forced and I feel like arguably they might make it feel forced we're here and putting myself or like I'm born in 1990s so I don't know what it's like to live in that time I only have an awareness of what I've ever learned from history lessons or movies or whatever of what the time was like back then. And I can only imagine just how much more of a social commentary spoof movie

and a more effective this actually was for back then. And then you got to think about the separate side. Like how is it just as a comedy movie in total? There is where I'm maybe like it's weird. I had one thing with this movie that I was so surprised by and that I respected admire about it so much of like. like being willing to tackle that and at times had some just truly laugh out loud jokes at times is truly hilarious uh overall i thought it was funny i wasn't i didn't think it was this hilarious

romp that i've always heard about that it's just like just one of the best comedies of all time and i see how why it would be such a valuable comedy and an important one for um american history but right now for me this is the man maybe it's because i'm not feeling the greatest or whatever but even though I think if I was still feeling 100% I'd probably still walk away thinking the same thing which is that yeah it's had some really funny moments but I guess at times it felt too much like even though I was admiring the way it was made

in film and that's what I mean by how it stops it surpasses what a lot of spoof movies do now which is they feel like sketches and here this didn't feel like a sketch but yet it still kind of kept plain like a series of sketches after a certain time and I feel like some of those best spoof movies nowadays and granted this is an earlier time

and it's a very specific style I feel like the kind of thing I crave a little bit more of is to actually feel just a little bit more of that actual character and actual heart throughout the film instead of just jokes you know and I think that's why Gene Wilders and why Jim and Bart are so effective together and their scenes because that's when you start to get real moments with more unexpected comedy lines

that come out of Gene Wilder or Bart in those scenes when they feel like this is a real, just a real movie when it's with them and has some great comedy and some wackiness and some really heightened bits that are unrealistic and stuff. But it still manages to maintain like a good sense of soul at that point. And then here throughout, and then, I don't know why I'm saying anything here, but throughout the rest of the movie, it did feel like really well-made comedy bits, albeit it wasn't like, oh, it was kind of funny. And then I just stopped laughing throughout. I would find myself at least like every other scene having a good laugh at at least something in there. And I do appreciate the fact that they brought like so many classic Western cliches.

tropes into here because it also seemed to have, as much as it was taking a dig at, you know, the truth, this ugly truth within the American Foundation, it also simultaneously seemed to have a love for those Westerns. It didn't seem like they were criticizing the Western movies necessarily. It seemed like they were actually kind of honoring it in some way. You could feel there's some level of reverence on top of exposing, like, within its deconstruction. So it didn't seem like it was just an insult towards that. And do you guys kind of get what I'm getting at with this? I feel like I'm making sense, at least in my own.

I think it makes sense that, yeah, it's doing a lot. And I appreciated that it was more than just a straightforward comment. because it was just a straightforward comedy about you know just like do these jokes still land do these jokes still work after all these years then i would walk away going every once in a while yeah but because it's actually got more going on underneath the surface it made me appreciate it a lot more than i expected to in that regard so as a as a comedy movie i go yeah it's still funny i want to say it's like hilarious a couple of hilarious a couple of hilarious moments still funny um did i expect to kind of laugh more and consistently and throughout yeah i mean you're watching reaction highlights then you know mainly just the parts i found funny so it looks looks like just cracking up that but uh in terms of like you know when if you did the watch along you would know that oh yeah not every there's there's a lot of jokes that are just kind of like but uh in terms of being surprised by how there's more nuance to the film and

and a cool social commentary that I think is even applicable to today. Movie has my respect. Movie has my respect. So, yeah, that was a surprise. And forgive me as I'm still learning how to talk. I go three days without talking on camera. And I'm like, how do I be again? And I'm still under the weather right now.

So I appreciate you guys being here. And I'm glad I watched it because I was just going to watch it in a bed. But because I got this place and then there's a back room that I'm staying at. So between these two sections all the time. And, yeah, we was just going to watch it over there. But I started to watch it with you guys. Classic Hollywood film. And I don't know if I've seen any other Mel Brooks movies.

I feel like I've seen some of baseballs, to say the least. But in terms of what is Mel Brooks comedy style? I have no idea. This to me feels like a pure introduction to it. But it sounds like he's established his name after a certain point. because of the fact that there was like meta jokes about it being Mel Brooks

in the end. Anywho, thank you guys for being here. But before we go, I'd like to end this with a patron of the day shout-out. Maria Hammond, Maria, I just wanted to say to you that I love you. And there were some people being total dickheads

to you in Discord. And they can go fuck themselves. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. that was a bunch of bullshit and I want you to know that they don't matter to me you matter you matter a lot you've been an amazing beautiful soul to me uh in more ways than one and you reach out to me on a very genuine tender levels that I constantly find very touching and I'm incredibly appreciative of you you mean the absolute world to me and you're one of the best souls i've ever known you got an insanely gracious heart and it pains me to see people

be such dick heads to you like that because you don't deserve that and you're better than them in every way you're the shit you're the you're you're you're the top of the pile of shit i don't know i just just realize and people say you're the shit and then i'm like sort of thinking about you shit me it's kind of a weird thing if you're like you just put there another word it's not very insulting you know you're you're the shit sounds cool you're a piece of shit sounds just fucking awful but no you're you're you're the bum and just know that whatever mean things they were saying that's not at all how i perceive you whatsoever you're you're very near and dear to my heart. And remember that, please. Please remember that. I love you.