Blazing Saddles is probably my most favorite movie of all time. It was released on this date back in 1974.
Here is the plot summary from the Blazing Saddles Wikipedia etry:
The story is set in the American Old West of 1874 (though it is filled with anachronistic references). Construction on a new railroad runs into quicksand; the route has to be changed, which will require it to go through Rock Ridge, a frontier town where everyone has the last name of “Johnson” (including a “Howard Johnson“, a “Van Johnson” and an “Olson Johnson“.) The conniving State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr — not to be confused, as he often is in the film, with actress Hedy Lamarr — wants to buy the land along the new railroad route cheaply by driving the townspeople out. He sends a gang of thugs, led by his flunky Taggart, to scare them away, prompting the townsfolk to demand that the Governor (Mel Brooks) appoint a new sheriff. The Attorney General convinces his dim-witted boss to select Bart (Cleavon Little), an African American railroad worker as the new sheriff. Because Bart is black, Lamarr believes that this will so offend the townspeople they will either abandon the town or lynch the new sheriff.
With his quick wits and the assistance of an alcoholic gunslinger Jim, also known as “The Waco Kid” (“I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille!”), Bart works to overcome the townsfolk’s hostile reception. He defeats (and eventually befriends) Mongo, an immensely strong (but only marginally sentient) henchman sent by Taggart, and bests German seductress-for-hire Lili von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn) at her own game, before inspiring the town to lure Lamarr’s newly-recruited and incredibly diverse army of thugs (rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, thugs, pugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, train robbers, bank robbers, and Methodists in addition to nearly every other kind of stock movie villain) into an ambush.
The resulting fight between the townsfolk and the gunfighters is such that it literally breaks the fourth wall; the fight spills out from the film lot in the Warner Bros. Studios into a neighboring musical set, then the studio commissary where a pie fight ensues, and finally pouring out into the surrounding streets.
The film ends with the sheriff and the Waco Kid defeating the bad guy, saving the town, catching the end of the movie, persuading people of all colors and creeds to live in harmony and, finally, riding (in a limousine) off into the sunset.
Scenes left on the editing room floor…
New research from Stanford and the University of California, Santa Cruz suggests that there is a method to theaters’ madness–and one that in fact benefits the viewing public. By charging high prices on concessions, exhibition houses are able to keep ticket prices lower, which allows more people to enjoy the silver-screen experience.
