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Welcome to Movies & Film
Movie Reviews, & Film Industry Commentary
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1974 – R – 93 min.
Director: Mel Brooks
Primary Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Mel Brooks, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, David Huddleston, Claude Ennis Starrett, Jr.
Stars ***** (of 5)
Popcorn **** 1/2 (of 5)
Film Type(s): Comedy, Slapstick, Western, Spoof
Synopsis: In a scheme to take the land away from its real owners, villainous Hedley Lemarr persuades buffoon Governer Lepontomane (Brooks) to send a town a new Sherieff, who would also happen to be the Old West’s first Black Sherieff. “Black” Bart (Little) does what he can against the stupid, bigoted townspeople, helped along the way by drunk gunfighter The Waco Kid (“My name is Jim, but most people call me…Jim.”)(Wilder) and Singer / Madame Lili Von Stupp (Kahn). Non-stop gags from start to finish. Cameos include Dom Deluise as an effeminate movie producer and Count Basie and his Orchestra. The title song is sung by Frankie Laine, who sang the theme for TV’s “Rawhide”.
Review: “It’s twue! It’s twue!” Paddleball champion / comedy writer Mel Brooks sets his sights on the old West and scores in this hilarious film spoof. The basics of the movie are simple: 1974 in 1874. Part of what makes the film work so well, is that Brooks holds nothing back, taking equal aim at everyone, helped by Writers Richard Pryor (when he was still a rising star), Andrew Bergman, Norman Steinberg, and Alan Uger. The delivery of the actors is spot on, with Little’s Black Bart a riotous intellectual, Wilder a sobering super fast gun fighter, and Kahn’s Stupp an excellent Marlene Dietrich parody (“I’m tired.”) This is a film not for the sensitive, easily offended, or Politically Correct; so if you aren’t one of those, you’ll be laughing like crazy. Filled with some of the best one liners ever, this is quotable comedy at its best. Just beware of the beans. This film was also infamous for its recasting: first of Pryor for Little (the studio thought Pryor was too vulgar) and Oscar nominee Gig Young, who was originally to play the Waco Kid, but his own alcoholism prevented him and Wilder brought in at the last moment (much to this reviewers delight). In fact, Wilder and Brooks thought that this film went so well, they quickly wrote and shot Young Frankenstein and released it the same year.
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