Mel Brooks took the western genre and turned it upside down in his usual calamitous fashion, with this hilarious spoof, which turned out to be one of his best films in a hit and miss career.
Using characters including a black sheriff, a recovering alcoholic gunslinger, and a Teutonic love interest, all serve to create hilarious consequences. There are also some classic scenes, notably the 'farting round the campfire', 'the toll both in the middle of nowhere', the 'quicksand' , the 'candy gram' and many others. Even some of the bit part characters have some great lines like the priest, the executioner, and Brooks himself is fantastic as the Governor LaPetomane, and a Yiddish-Speaking Indian Chief. Also, look out for Dom Deluise as the incredibly camp director/choreographer.
Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder are called upon to save a town where everyone has the surname Johnson, and are not particularly welcoming to a black sheriff. They are attempting to prevent the demolition of Rock Ridge, set up by LaPetomane (Brooks) and Hedy Lamarr - Sorry! That's Hedley! - who has one of the best lines in the film whilst giving his band of outlaws a pep talk - "Now you will be risking your lives for this task, whilst I, will be risking an almost certain academy award nomination, for best supporting actor!!". To carry out his plan, the outlaws are led by Taggart (played by Slim Pickens) as they try to enforce his desire to destroy Rock Ridge.
In order to foil the heroes' plans, Lamarr enlists the help of cabaret singer Lili Von Schtupp (played by the late Madeline Kahn), to attempt to attract the sheriff to her so he could be disposed of. The theme of racism runs heavily through the film, but only for comic effect, as it is more of an attack on the villagers ignorance, rather than the minorities. This is shown through Jim's (Wilder) explanation for their ignorance.'These are people who have lived on their land for generations, they have unchanging values, the salt of the earth people, you know, MORONS!'
Also two Ku Klux Klan members appear as disguises for Jim and Bart. but it's not only colour that gets ridiculed, illustrated by 'All right, we'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks, but we don't want the Irish!' Stereotypes are mocked and rewritten, as Brooks takes an original concept, and makes it his own. Although it's not my favourite Mel Brooks film, it is up there with some of the best comedies of all time, and is highly recommended viewing.
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Craig Aston
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