I've got to hand it to Burton Gilliam...he liked Cleavon Little, and so had trouble saying the 'n' word in front of him. Cleavon Little had to take him aside and say, "I know that's not your word, but here it's all in fun." I highly respect that man for that, especially when this movie was made.
I'm 74 yrs old, went to see this movie When it opened in the theaters black White and everything in between Was in attendance everybody just Roared in laughter. Had society gotten to the point that we have Descended into hatred for each Other. SAD SAD SAD!
I had sore ribs for days after I saw this movie for the first time.....brilliant, and hilarious....and the perfect answer to racism....Mel Brooks is a genius....
I was surprised to see this as an airline movie choice. Had my headphones and I'm cracking up. Guess someone complained because it was gone on the return flight 2 days later.
It’s in my all time top ten movies. Not only was it funny but it delivered a lesson in morality without preaching. A wonderful film that should teach people that racism is stupid
Burton Gilliam (in the red shirt) was good friends with my godfather, Spider Bynum. One Christmas Eve he and Spider called and asked my dad to put me on the phone. Burton pretended to be Santa Claus and told me I needed to leave out two peanut butter sandwiches and a 6-pack of Miller Lite for him, and to go ahead and open all the beers bc, you know, “I’m gonna be in a big hurry.” I handed the phone back to my dad and as he was walking into the next room I heard him say, “You son of a bitch …”
Slim Pickens was a rodeo cowboy and Burton Gilliam (Lyle) was a fireman in Texas when they switched to acting. This was Burton Gilliam's second role in any type of production, but he managed to impress Peter Bogdanovich and Mel Brooks with his natural acting ability, as demonstrated here.
And, kinda foolishly, one of the major new car dealerships in Dallas, not many years after the movie came out, was apparently impressed enough by Burton's "charisma" (he was a Dallas native, IIRC) that they decided to use him as their pitchman on their billboard and T.V. ads. I think they soon realized they made a major mistake by doing that, though, given the high # of Blacks living in the DFW area (all potential customers of theirs, many of which had seen Burton in the movie), and quickly pulled the ads. :-x
Saw this for the 1st time as an 8th-grader. This scene is so much more effective now that I appreciate that sophisticated rendering of "I Get a Kick Out of You."
“Camptown Races” was written as a minstrel song that would have been typically been performed in blackface and was meant to ridicule black people. What this scene ends up doing is it turns the people who would have done the ridiculing (the white guys) into the object of ridicule, which (given the song’s history) I think is pretty genius. The whole movie is a satire on how race was handled in Hollywood’s portrayals of the Old West (and by Hollywood as a whole; the Production Code had only been ended 6 years before the release of this film), and the history of that is worth looking into (as well as the Production Code).
Yes, Splendid, Splendid....we will have a fine time. Singing, and dancing, and merriment. Boris, bring us some Champagne, will you? Uhhh surrr...I can't possibly bring it right now, I'm booked solid.... Nevermind Boris, I will get Taggart to get it. Do your best Boris.
I'm 47 now and this movie still makes me laugh my nuts off. As a boy growing up in Ireland I had to watch on my old VCR on my black and white TV. Hilarious 😂
When I first saw Blazing Saddles, I thought it was going to be a regular western. When I saw this scene, I cracked up and kept laughing. The entire row of theater seat was shaking from people laughing.
OMG the original Pitch Perfect. I can't say how much I love this movie, by brother and I snuck in to the movies to watch this back when you actually bought a real ticket to get in, which we didn't. I can remember mom, what are you boys always laughing about, and what's that thing you keep saying to your brother about "where the white women at??"
You honestly didn't even need to say that this was from Blazing Saddles in your description. We all knew as soon as we saw the video title what it was referencing.
He'd have done an alright job, but I feel like the role does fit Cleavon Little better. The look he gives these racists whenever they say stupid stuff always points out the absurdity. And he does show to have a wide range too. I think it might actually have worked out for the best that it was not his usual type of movie, allowing him to bring a different energy to the role.
@@brucegilbert7243 And in doing so they completely miss the whole point of the film: show racism for how completely backwards and idiotic as it truly is. It truly is a shame that they have to butcher this film to avoid "offending" anyone these days or else be called racists when the film is all about laughing at racism as a whole.
Are you dumb? They literally made a comedy in 2019 about a kid who's imaginary best friend is Hitler. This movie was near impossible to make back in the 70's, movie execs were insanely offended by every joke and scene and constantly fought Brooks to rewrite everything. They hated that he talked about race. They also tried to demand last minute that he change the main character to a white man. They were so sensitive back then.
We were until King George I (the Butt Patter) became vice president under Reagan. It is my personal belief the former CIA chief (Bush 1, that is) ushered in the spy state takeover of the federal government. Between that em eff and the full embrace of Communism by the ENTIRE democrat party. Now race relations are horribly strained. And don't kid yourself, the Bushes are NOT Republicans, but they are some downright evil emm effers.
It wouldn't be able to be made in the same way, because the world has changed. And that's alright. However, back when this was made, you'd better believe it was bleeding edge SJW PC bullshit of the most conservative-snowflake-triggering kind. Don't be fooled by the use of evil words and themes, this movie was intended to stick it to racists and bigots and narrow-minded people everywhere.
@@chuckyhindle1877 While it's arguably true the American Conservatives before this came out had practically invented the groundwork (lots of PC softening of language came from the military to hide the real ugliness) for the extreme forms of identity politics we have today, don't get it twisted: it's the student radicals of the 60s who fully weaponized it in that era and since. The current PC "Woke" are like a cross between the Satanic Panic cons of the 80s and the most tiresome anarco-leftists of the 90s. The point is either side, both extremes, do the same thing: illiberal attacks demonizing others based on their identity, something beyond our control. The brilliance of a show like All In the Family is showing the ignorance and sameness of the reactionary left like Meathead and the old conservatives like Archie. The black neighbor actually got on better with Archie because at least he wasn't a condescending hypocrite like Rob Reiner's character. Reality, obviously, is more complex than a movie or TV series can show. Unfortunately, our media now reflects even more limited, shallow perspectives than a popular sitcom did fifty years ago.
@@chuckyhindle1877 The TL;DR version of my above thesis (lol): the world has become more hostile to differences of opinion and more racist than it was in 2012, or 1974 for that matter. Now the biggest narrow-minded bigots around are the corporate-led liberals and left-wingers. Not that much has changed since Phil Ochs' time when he wrote "Love me, I'm a Liberal", except that the gap between liberals and leftists has shrunk and they're all basically in the same boat pointing the finger at powerless Others/enemies. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0nFvhhCulaw.html
@@FungusMossGnosis "Now the biggest narrow-minded bigots around are the corporate-led liberals and left-wingers." No, no I'm pretty sure the biggest narrow-minded bigots around are still the actual racists and homophobes. But you won't see me disagreeing about the number of hypocrites and dishonest folks out there.
I am old enough to have watched this as a young man. Let me tell you a secret about how people back then felt about the language and racism in this movie. You have to understand Mel Brooks is mocking the actual racism of the 1870s and therefor mocking any vestiges left in 1974. Everybody back in 1974 knew it was unacceptable to hold those kind of racist beliefs just like today. People aren’t laughing because they think racism is funny. When people laugh, it’s mostly because of how stupid the person saying it sounds. Everybody who is racist in this movie is a bad guy or stupid. The smartest coolest people in the movie are those who don’t see race. People also laughed because certain words were new to the film industry and so had shock value. The difference between back then and today? Back then people laughed at that crap because they realized how stupid it was and how idiotic people who still thought that way were. They were to be mocked and ridiculed. That’s what this movie does. In this clip you see the boss and his white posse shuckin and jivin. That’s funny. Today though people just want to go straight to offended. They don’t have to use their mind to decipher whether this was actual racism or a mockery of it.
