TheRetroCritic

Here's the video version of my Blazing Saddles review.

As far as Western spoofs go, it doesn't get any more classic than Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles . The film, which follows Cleavon Little's black sheriff as he is sent into a small racist town to defend it from bandits, was a big hit back in the day and it's still seen as one of the greatest comedies of all time. As with many other Mel Brooks comedies, Blazing Saddles could have easily backfired and been dismissed as being in poor taste but the writing (Richard Pryor helped with the script) is so clever and so funny that it somehow completely works as a biting parody of Western clichés and the genre's reluctance to acknowledge the unapologetic racism of the times. The plot is set into motion when Harvey Korman's corrupt State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr decides to drive the people of Rock Ridge out of town in order to lower land prices. He appoints an African American sheriff to shock the inhabitants away but when that doesn't work he tries various oth

Gene Wilder writes and directs The Adventure Of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother , a spoof comedy from 1975 starring Wilder himself as Sigerson Holmes, the iconic sleuth's lesser known younger brother, who is assigned to a case linked to Sherlock's arch-enemy Moriarty. Very much in the vein of Young Frankenstein , the film follows the goofier relative of a well known literary figure and a good old-fashioned farce ensues. Wilder reunites with slapstick legend Marty Feldman, a detective with a photographic memory who assists him, and their main lead is beautiful actress and compulsive liar Jenny Hill (a hilarious Madeline Kahn). The reliably great Dom DeLuise also appears near the end of the film as a shady opera singer with a cartoonish accent. The plot of the film pokes fun at the convoluted nature of Arthur Conan Doyle's novels and the clichés found in most Sherlock Holmes films but it's more of a loving homage than anything else. All the characters here are