Blazing Saddles, 1974.
Directed by Mel Brooks.
Starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Alex Karras, Mel Brooks, Harvey Korman, and Madeline Kahn.
SYNOPSIS:
Did Blazing Saddles need a 4K Ultra HD release? Why the heck not? It may not rank up there with about a billion genre movies on people’s wish lists, but this disc serves up a solid transfer, a brand new bonus feature, some legacy extras, and a code for a digital copy. We don’t need no steenking batches!
Okay, this one was a nice palette cleanser after The Terminator. (Warner Bros. sent me Blazing Saddles, The Terminator, North by Northwest, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice for reviews, so I’m saddling up the long ride.)
While Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Saturday Night Live, along with the novels of Douglas Adams, were huge humor influences during my formative years, Mel Brooks’ movies weren’t far behind. He made many hysterical, very quotable films during the 1970s and 1980s that are much beloved by many Boomers and Gen Xers. (I’m in the latter generation.)
Yeah, I get the sense that Mel’s brand of humor doesn’t quite resonate the same way with Millennials and Gen Zers, but maybe they’ll come around as they get older. When I was young, I certainly viewed a lot of old movies as quaint before refining my tastes and coming to appreciate them in my later years. I think everyone goes through cycles like that in their lives.
If you’re reading this review, I assume you’re probably one of my people and just want to know whether this new 4K Ultra HD edition of Blazing Saddles (its debut on the format) is worth a purchase, especially if you own the earlier Blu-ray and/or DVD. I’d say it’s a must-have if you haven’t owned it before, and it’s still worth a double-dip if you care about 4K picture quality and a new bonus feature.
This isn’t the kind of movie that will get people all worked up over the transfer, like (ahem) James Cameron’s films, but I don’t think anyone who cares will find much to complain about here. I’ve said this before about other 4K Ultra HD movies, so I’ll repeat myself here: this is pretty much the pinnacle in terms of how good Blazing Saddles can look on home video; at least we have that going for us in the current timeline.
In the extras department, Warner Bros. has commissioned a new piece, the 20-minute Inappropriate Inspiration: The Blazing Saddles Effect, in which Jeff Garlin and others wax nostalgic about the movie. It’s a “preaching to the choir” kind of bonus feature, but it’s still worth your while.
Everything else was ported over from previous editions. I’m not 100% sure if anything has been left out, but here’s what you get:
• Scene-specific commentary by Mel Brooks: That’s how this extra is described, although I’m not sure how “scene-specific” differs from other kinds of commentary tracks, unless you’re talking about ones that just play audio clips over the movie. Anyway, this is a worthwhile track for fans of the film because Mel Brooks clearly loves talking about his work and you can always count on him being funny.
• Blaze of Glory: Mel Brooks’ Wild, Wild West (29 minutes): This one was new for the 40th anniversary Blu-ray (eep – it’s the 50th anniversary now!) and it featured new interview clips with Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, as well as archival clips with Madeline Kahn.
• Back in the Saddle (28 minutes): Hailing from the DVD era, this extra is a nice overview of the making of the movie.
• Deleted scenes (10 minutes): There’s some repetition here with the excised footage shown in Back in the Saddle, but, overall, these are still fun to watch.
The pilot for the failed 1975 TV series Black Bart isn’t included here, but that’s not a major loss, considering how cringey (to borrow an adjective from the youngsters) it is.
A code for a digital copy rounds this one out.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
