Mel Brooks’ BLAZING SADDLES Midnights at The Tivoli This Weekend

“They said you was hung!”

“They was right!”

BLAZING SADDLES  plays this weekend (August 29th and 30th) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series.

And the perfect movie to show in a city that’s in the middle of a race riot is of course….. BLAZING SADDLES!

I showed the condensed Super-8 version of BLAZING SADDLES, appropriately enough, at my Super-8 POLITICALLY INCORRECT Movie Madness show last year at The Way Out Club and there are enough N-words in the 18-minute edit alone to make Paula Dean blush, but damn, this movie just keeps getting funnier as it ages!

BLAZING SADDLES is my favorite Mel Brooks comedy. Yes, even more than YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN – it’s hard to believe Brooks produced both yuk-fests the same year. I just watched his 1977 follow-up HIGH ANXIETY on 16mm last weekend for the first time since it was new and Yikes! – I see why it was a critical disaster – didn’t laugh once!

Many of the sight gags in BLAZING SADDLES are straight out of Looney Tunes, and most of the dialogue is unspeakable in polite society. On the Looney Tunes point: Sheriff Bart (a very funny Cleavon Little) shows up in a period-inappropriate bellhop uniform, marches up to a rampaging lunkhead named Mongo, and says in a high-pitched Bugs Bunny-esque voice, “Telegram!” Mongo accepts the delivery, Sheriff Bart crisply walks away with his fingers in his ears, and the package explodes in Mongo’s face, leaving him sullied and smoking. The Merry Melodies theme plays and the scene fades to black. You might not expect that kind of thing to work in live action, but it does. As to the dialogue, Mel Brooks doesn’t exaggerate when he says in a recent interview that BLAZING SADDLES could not be made now. Strangely, it might skate by with a PG-13 rating, going strictly by the MPAA’s infamously “de facto censorship” system: there are no F-bombs and no nudity. Yet the overall impression is that far more sensitive taboos than these are being lampooned (if you know what I mean), and many are the jokes that might prompt boycotts, demonstrations, and general condemnation today. The pilot for the TV spin-off (called Black Bart) is included on the BLAZING SADDLES special edition DVD and I’m amazed how many times the N-word is used in that TV show! It was a different time indeed.

In 1974 BLAZING SADDLES was the highest-grossing film of the year, and Warner Brothers not only released it but was a character in it; the studio’s iconic lot–tour groups, cafeteria, and all–is the setting of one of the most memorable scenes. The movie’s repeated acknowledgment that it is a movie is another Mel Brooks hallmark. His films parody Hollywood, but they exhibit real affection for it too, and this one is full of references to the likes of Cecil B. DeMille, the Academy Awards, Douglas Fairbanks, HIGH NOON, and so on. In other words, this film contains the kind of smart, flattering stuff that Hollywood loves to reward, the fart jokes that audiences want, and the fresh, risky content that gives critics something to write about. It is a classic.

A side note: One time I was at a trivia night once and the category was “guess the movie from the quote”. One question was “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” Of course I wrote TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, but the host claimed I was wrong and argued that the line was from BLAZING SADDLES! WTF!

Now you’ll have the chance to laugh your ass off and feel just terrible about it when BLAZING SADDLES plays on the big screen this weekend (August 29th and 30th) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series.

The Tivoli’s located at 6350 Delmar Blvd., University City, MO. Admission is a mere $8!

The Tivoli’s website can be found HERE

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm

Here’s the Reel Late at the Tivoli Line-up for the next two weeks:

Sept. 5-6              PURPLE RAIN – 30^th anniversary

Sept. 12-13         GHOST IN THE SHELL

Stay tuned here at We Are Movie Geeks – we’ll be announcing the next line-up of Tivoli midnight flicks this week!