Blazing Saddles (1974)

Mel Brooks’ satirical Western Blazing Saddles stars Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder with Brooks in multiple supporting roles as well as his regulars Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, and Harvey Korman.

The film satirizes the racism obscured by myth-making Hollywood accounts of the American West, with the hero a black sheriff in an all-white town. It’s full of deliberate anachronism, from the Count Basie Orchestra playing “April in Paris” in the Wild West, to Slim Pickens referring to the Wide World of Sports, to the German army of World War II. The movie was nominated for three Academy Awards, and is ranked No.6 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Laughs list.

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