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Created May 02, 2008 10:19AM PST • Edited May 02, 2008 10:19AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   This is one seriously funny film, and still liable to shock and amuse in equal measure. The racist angle is well handled, and the spoofs, non-sequieteurs and general surrealism of “Blazing Saddles” make it as unmissable as a comedy classic should be.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little are hilariously cast here, playing the two heroic characters (well, heroism in such a film is laughable), but they are amongst the funniest characters within the film, and carry it well.

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

   There’s only really the “German” singer, who has one or two hilarious scenes.

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

   Mel Brooks has a great small role as a perverted, insane senator, and the other minor characters (particularly “Mongo”, who memorably knocks out a horse in one of the funniest scenes of the film) are entertaining in their short tenures on screen.

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    I don’t think it could have been easy to film a spoof western, but Brooks makes it look easy, the town looking realistic and the film itself looking brilliant even whilst being around thirty years old.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    I don’t think Brooks directed this so much as shouted “Action” and let the improvisation and comedy take the lead!

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    The dialogue is the highlight of this film for me, starting with the play on words regarding “Hedley” LaMarr, and going on towards the “Waco” Kid…this film doesn’t really stop with the gags, and their quality make it an outstanding as opposed to a mediocre comedy film.

13. Music Great 4.0

    The songs written for the film contribute to the surreal situations, such as the memorable “Tired”, which when heard from the lips of the lisping German temptress provides a strange, if not tongue-in-cheek mockery of the old West’s musical traditions.

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5

    The fact that the whole film is filmed in what could easily have been a restored Western town underlines the power of the visuals here, notwithstanding the amazing vistas and landscapes that Brooks finds to background his action and comedy to.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.8

    There’s no sex and little violence, but what the film lacks in this it truly makes up for in profanity and edginess. Having so many people say THAT word to describe Bart and the other black slaves soon causes it to become a joke, as Brooks no doubt intends in his spoof and mockery of the old West and its bigotry. The sexual references drag it up a little also.

17. Sex

18. Violence

19. Rudeness Profane 3.4

21. Reality

    Surreal 3.0

    I think the conclusion to the film really sums up how realistic Blazing Saddles is. Unless you’ve missed the man punching a horse, the cardboard town, or the anachronistic singing of the black slaves at the beginning. Probably one of the most surreal hours of my life!

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Surreal 3.0

24. Physical Surreal 3.0