| Blazing Saddles - Special Edition | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 329 reviews)
Sales Rank: 12402
Category: Video
Actors: Richard Collier, Carol Deluise, Dom Deluise, Liam Dunn, George Furth
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Studio: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Label: Warner Home Video
Format: Color, Original Recording Remastered, Special Edition, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Yiddish (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: VHS Tape
Edition: All-New documentary, "Back in the Saddle"
Running Time: 116 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0790757346
UPC: 085391895930
EAN: 9780790757346
ASIN: B000056WT6
Release Date: April 3, 2001
Theatrical Release Date: February 7, 1974
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com essential video
Mel Brooks scored his first commercial hit with this raucous Western spoof starring the late Cleavon Little as the newly hired (and conspicuously black) sheriff of Rock Ridge. Sheriff Bart teams up with deputy Jim (Gene Wilder) to foil the railroad-building scheme of the nefarious Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman). The simple plot is just an excuse for a steady stream of gags, many of them unabashedly tasteless, that Brooks and his wacky cast pull off with side-splitting success. The humor is so juvenile and crude that you just have to surrender to it; highlights abound, from the lunkheaded Alex Karras as the ox-riding Mongo to Madeline Kahn's uproarious send-up of Marlene Dietrich as saloon songstress Lili Von Shtupp. Adding to the comedic excess is the infamous campfire scene involving a bunch of hungry cowboys, heaping servings of baked beans and, well, you get the idea. --Jeff Shannon
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 Blazing Saddles - Blu-ray Info October 15, 2008
Version: U.S.A / Region Free
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
VC-1 BD-25
Average video bit rate: 23.93 Mbps
Running time: 1:32:51
Movie size: 18,60 GB
Disc size: 22,97 GB
DD AC3 5.1 640Kbps English
DD 1.0 Spanish / French-Quebec
Subtitles: English SDH / English / French / Spanish
#Audio Commentary
#Deleted Scenes (10 min)
#Black Bart TV Pilot (25 min)
#Back in the Saddle (28 min)
#Intimate Portrait: Madeline Kahn (4 min)
#Theatrical trailer
 Trailblazing "Saddles" - Greatest Mel Brooks Film of All Time October 11, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
A few years ago, Broadway producers decided to adapt a Mel Brooks comedy and made a bundle. Could it happen again with 'Blazing Saddles?' The movie already has four great songs; a half-dozen more of similar caliber would make for a strong score. 'Blazing Saddles' has a ready-made cast of over-the-top characters, strong audience identification, and some minor problems for a theatrical production (like blowing up the phony Rock Ridge) which are easily overcome.
But 'The Producers' was a cult film that never made it to Main Street and needed the second act of a Broadway musical to give it a place in popular culture. 'Blazing Saddles' could never open again as big as it did in 1974. In the summer of Watergate and Patty Hearst, here was one bit of madness people could enjoy. And it wasn't just random kookiness, but a film that broke barriers and courted controversy like no other major-release film of its time. No other movie had characters that were basically likable if stupid throwing around the 'N' word before. In fact, it hasn't happened since (and I doubt it would on Broadway today.) The whole notion of white people and black people living together was not new, but the approach of 'Blazing Saddles' was certainly new. In order to live together, we have to laugh together first. The only way this film was not a trailblazer was in that it blazed trails untaken by any film that came after.
Was Cleavon Little then a civil rights pioneer for the 1970s, in a way Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were the decade before? He's very good, bringing a lightness to the role that's equal parts Shaft and Bugs Bunny. Richard Pryor was one of the film's writers and Brooks' first choice for Sheriff Bart, but Pryor wouldn't have played the role in the same smooth way. Little is an amiable actor, one step ahead but never cocky about it. He makes for a sympathetic center, and he is flash in those corduroy threads.
Little didn't work much after 'Blazing Saddles,' which makes no sense. It was only the highest-grossing Western of all time, and Little was the lead actor in it. Maybe institutional racism wasn't the sole cause. After all, he had a distractingly rock-solid cast around him, particularly Harvey Korman as Attorney General Hedley Lamarr. Growing up in the '70s, it was a shock the first time I saw the unedited 'Blazing Saddles' with all the casual vulgarity spewing from the mouth of Tim Conway's slapstick buddy on the ultra G-rated 'Carol Burnett Show.' 'You will be only risking your lives, whilst I will be risking an almost-certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor,' he tells his gang before they ride off to pillage Rock Ridge. If only the Academy didn't penalize comedies so, that might have been true.
Madeline Kahn did get nominated for Lili Von Shtupp, and deserved her Laurel and Hardy handshake for sure. Her Baba Wawa meets Marlene Dietrich performance is a comic masterpiece, and it takes guts to wear that dead-weed lingerie in which she performs 'I'm So Tired.' Slim Pickens (Taggart), Burton Gilliam (Lyle), Dom DeLuise (Buddy), and Brooks himself as 'the Gov' all shine, and the level of comic acting remains high all the way to the smallest roles, like the guy playing Hitler ('They lose me right after the bunker scene') and the cowboy who chews gum in line ('I didn't know there was gonna be so many people!')
Gene Wilder is a little young and ironic for the bitter ex-gunslinger known as the Waco Kid, but he grows into the role well enough. Certainly he was in tune with what Brooks was doing more than Gig Young or Dan Dailey would have been (Brooks' earlier choices for the part, with Young making it all the way to the first day's shooting before it was discovered he wasn't just acting the part of a hopeless drunk.)
'Blazing Saddles' is one of the most significant video titles because it rewards repeat viewings so well. The wholeness of the film's comic spectacle is too dense to be absorbed in one viewing, especially when you are laughing too hard. It's a cultural landmark, yes, but it's even funnier now than it was 30 years ago, one of the funniest comedies that exist today. Making it into a musical now would almost be demeaning, but I suspect it will happen anyway.
Top notch, amazingly good comedy September 22, 2008
This is a fantastic film! It's incredibly funny, very rude and has some great performances!
There are brilliant one liners, great setpieces and some wonderfully surreal humour.
A first class comedy - a must see.
what's in a word??? September 20, 2008
I am so sick of people using the words PC or NON PC to describe a piece of artistic expression...they are words created by the the standards and practices police who tell you what they think is acceptable.Yes Blazing Saddles uses the so called N-Word... it also uses many words offensive to many races... i notice many reviewers don't seem to notice the other words...that aside you need to recognize whose mouths these words are coming out of...ignorant frontier folk afraid of anything foreign...they are not children...they are not completely off the mark in their portrayal of the ignorance and bigotry that was pervasive in ,well, most of US history.If you have a problem with the "fictional" racism in this movie perhaps you should go to a library and read the books about sacco and vanzetti or the plight of native americans swindled and practically killed off...When one of the characters says"dock that Ch--- a days pay" his savagery is like a punch in the stomach it makes you uncomfortable AND IT SHOULD!!! or when the elderly lady tells sheriff bart "up yours' N-----" when all he is doing is wishing her good day ...his pain is tangible because even someone who should be more wise than most degrades him... This
parody is light reading compared to the real thing...there are many many funny moments in this movie ...but remember this is not just a parody of western movies,,,it is a parody of american history...not normally a subject of hilarity due to it's many painful chapters for many races...
If you can't handle the truth mixed with humourous intelligent observations about racism and stereotyping perhaps you should stay away...p.s. to all those who say this not for young ones..i say that if you want your child to have a better view of what ignorance really is have them watch this movie and explain to them that the views of the racist characters are wrong...children don't need to be protected they need to be educated and schools don't cut it when it comes to enlightenment
 tried to watch it again after a long time. September 5, 2008
As a little kid, I loved this movie. All the cartoonish candygram for Mongo schtick and the farting cowboys. As an adult I watched it, found it boring and was offended by all the questionable race humor.
I give it two stars because I remember a funny movie i loved as a kid. (he took hmself hostage hardy har har) otherwise I'd give it negative one star.
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