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| Blazing Saddles (1974) | |
| Plot Synopsis (continued)
Mongo is chained to a wall in the jail. The old woman who greeted Bart with derision brings a freshly-baked apple pie to the sheriff, showing grudging respect for the sheriff as a "thank you for your ingenuity and courage in defeating that horrible Mongo." But with racist overtones, she cautions that he not reveal to anyone that she spoke to him. Bart realizes how he has saved the town:
In Rock Ridge Saloon, the Teutonic Titwillow - Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn), a seductive saloon singer, is being presented by Hedley Lamarr. [The Teutonic singing prostitute, the lawyer's girlfriend, spoofs Marlene Dietrich's dance hall queen "Frenchy" of Destry Rides Again (1939) with a lisp. Her Yiddish name also has sexual connotations -- it means "to push" (also to 'f--k,' 'shag,' or 'screw'). The combination of Von with Shtupp implies high-class lineage or standing, so her entire last name literally means 'Royal Screw.'] Knowing that Lamarr has hired her for something other than the saloon job, she confronts him, learning that the plan is to seduce Bart and break his heart:
On stage, Lili Von Shtupp performs "I'm Tired" off-key, parodying Marlene Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again" with a world-weary Germanic, monotoned accent and a lisp. The sultry singer reduces all the men in the audience to fools - in the lyrics, she asks one of the drooling cowboys:
[Her line is a variation of one of Mae West's most infamous pronouncements.] She sings about having her fill of sex, in both areas of her private parts: "I've had my fill of love, From below and above." To finish her sleepy act, she sings and yawns:
At a table in the back of the saloon, Bart is handed a note from Lili: "I must see you alone in my dwessing woom right after the show." When Lili hears a knock on her door, she responds with a Cabaret-inspired phrase: "Wilkommen, bienvenu, welcome, c'mon in." Bart presents her with a single red rose, and she thanks him, with her Elmer-Fudd accent:
While she slips into something a little more comfortable (imitating Jean Harlow in Hell's Angels (1930)), she suggests: "Why don't you loosen your bullets?" Immediately, she turns out the lights to seduce him. Momentarily interrupted by Lamarr, she describes her progress: "It's like wet sauerkraut in my hands. By morning, he will be my slave." In the dark next to him, she asks Bart if black men are "gifted," and goes investigating his physical endowments in the dark:
By morning, instead of seducing him, Lili has herself been seduced by Bart. At the breakfast table after their night of passion, Lili picks up a large sausage with tongs (with obvious phallic symbolism) and gestures toward Bart:
Lili grabs on to him and begs him not to go as he leaves, making "a German spectacle" of herself. He cooly dismisses her with: "Auf Wiedersehen, baby." Back at the sheriff's office, Hedley Lamarr has had a writ issued to release Mongo - he is free to go, but since he has developed an affectionate likeness for his captors, he prefers to stay with Sheriff Bart: "Sheriff first man ever whip Mongo. Mongo impressed. Have these feelings for Sheriff Bart." Bart is suspicious why Hedley would care about Mongo. Mongo guesses that a "high-roller like Hedley Lamarr" is interested in the town of Rock Ridge: ("Don't know. Got to do with where choo-choo go."). Philosophically wondering about what it all means, although he is uncertain, Mongo knows his own place in the universe: "Mongo only pawn in game of life." The Waco Kid and Bart guess that it is an opportune time to snoop around the black chain gang site where the railroad track is being laid. They ride up to one of Bart's old friends named Charlie (Charles McGregor), who is happily amazed that the "shifty" Bart is now Sheriff of Rock Ridge with a silver star. Charlie tells them that the railroad tracks are going to pass directly through the town. Suddenly, it dawns on them why Lamarr is involved in his evil scheme. Taggart rides up with a group of cowboys, assailing black man Bart for wearing a sheriff's star:
Taggart's henchman Lyle, the chain-gang overseer, offers to cheer up Taggart by having his cowboys shoot Bart on the count of three. In a threatening showdown with guns drawn, the Waco Kid - with split-timing accuracy - shoots the guns from each of their hands - without hardly even moving. Back in Hedley's office, now that all of Lamarr's plans have backfired against Bart, Hedley realizes that he can no longer be "Mr. Goodbar." He instructs Taggart to act quickly to assault Rock Ridge. Lili (who is tied up in his office) understands why Lamarr has been defeated: 'Why don't you admit it? He's too much of a man for you. I know. You're gonna need an army to beat him. You're finished. Fertig! Fahrblunged! Fahrcocked!" Hedley rebukes her with a slap: "Shut up, you Teutonic twat!" Taking Lili's hint about an 'army,' Lamarr orders the simple-minded Taggart to round up "an army of the worst dregs ever to soil the face of the West...":
Since Taggart has been fumbling for a piece of paper and pencil during the entire litany, he finally asks - as an anti-climax: "Could you repeat that, sir?" When the townspeople of Rock Ridge learn of Lamarr's evil plan to recruit vicious criminals and thieves to assault their town (a poster reads: "Help Wanted: Heartless Villains For Destruction of Rock Ridge, $100 Per Day, Criminal Record Required, Hedley Lamarr, Equal Opportunity Employer"), they prepare to abandon the town, their homes, and their shops. Bart stops the exodus by pleading with the people [a scene that spoofs Gary Cooper's enlisting of the help of the churchfolk in High Noon (1952)] that he needs only 24 hours to foil Lamarr and save Rock Ridge:
In the desert, Hedley and Taggart set up a registration booth ("Register Here") for villains who wish to join his evil army. A motley crew of men are lined up to execute Lamarr's deadly plan. In a slow tracking shot from right to left across the applicants, they range from normal cowpokes, to rough-looking backwoodsmen, Nazi stormtroopers, gang members, Hell's Angels, Mexican bandits, rifle-toting Arabs on camels, and white-sheeted and hooded Ku Klux Klansmen (with a "Have a Nice Day" smiley face on their backs). The men must register to be issued a badge for the assault scheduled for the next day at noon. From a distance while hiding behind a rock, the Waco Kid and Bart watch as Hedley reviews the qualifications of one of the applicants:
The next in line, a gum-chewing cowboy (Don Megowan) who has all the proper qualifications ("arson, armed robbery, mayhem"), is shot point-blank by Hedley for not bringing enough gum for everyone. The Waco Kid witnesses the cold-blooded killing: "Boy, is he strict." To get closer to the line and see what's happening, the Waco Kid yells out to the two KKK members in the line: "Hey, boys! Look what I've got here." To entice them to leave the line (so the duo can steal their white robes and hoods), he holds up Bart as bait from behind a large rock, as Bart calls out with a mock-dumb (racially-stereotyped) taunt:
The two white-sheeted members are quickly subdued off-screen behind the boulder. In a line stolen (and improperly quoted) from the classic film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), a Mexican bandit in line rejects his badge during registration: "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" [The original lines were: "Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!"] Bart and the Waco Kid, now disguised as the two KKK members, try to infiltrate Lamarr's army by claiming that they stampeded cattle through the Vatican, but fail when Bart's hands reveal during the signing that he is black. The Waco Kid tries to cover up for Bart, obliquely referencing the film Gone With the Wind (1939) in the process:
A suspicious Taggart throws off Bart's hood. Bart's second impression - to rapidly get away - is to impersonate track star Jesse Owens: "And now, for my next impression: Jesse Owens." Lamarr fires his pistol into the air as Taggart screams into his ear:
Later that evening, Bart and the Waco Kid visit Charlie's tent, and enlist the aid of all of the chain gang's black RR workers and laborers to "round up all the lumber, canvas, paint and nails" that they can lay their hands on, so they can assemble at midnight and begin to build an exact replica of Rock Ridge - three miles due east of the actual town: "Every building, every store front, every rock and every tree, right down to the orange roof on Howard Johnson's outhouse." Their plan is to lure Taggart's gang into destroying the fake town instead of the real one. They will duplicate the town overnight with the assistance of the railroad workers (including everybody: "the n-----s," "the chinks" - and "the Irish"), who have agreed to help them. In Bart's words, in exchange for freedom and farm land ownership, they agree to build the fake town: ("They've agreed to help us make our dream come true, and all they ask in return is a little plot of land they can call their own to homestead"). The minister prays for guidance by lifting his eyes to heaven:
By dawn, the people realize that they have succeeded in creating a second, bogus Rock Ridge. To his own mob of supporters, Lamarr delivers a pep talk:
Lamarr asks everyone to raise their right hand for the pledge (of allegiance to Hedley Lamarr), but some of the "schmucks" don't know which hand to hold up. After everyone has pledged allegiance to "the evil for which he [Hedley] stands," they are exhorted to ride off: "Now go do that voodoo that you do so well." Back at Rock Ridge, Bart realizes that they're in trouble because they left out the people - however, they still have half an hour to manufacture dummy replicas of people: "We forgot one little detail...We just made a perfect copy of Rock Ridge. Now all we got to do is make perfect copies of ourselves...we got to start workin' fast. Now you men start workin' on the dummies." To slow down Taggart's gang "to a crawl," Jim, Mongo, and Bart set up a toll booth outside of the fake town with a red and white striped gate crossing, and a sign which reads: "Gov. William J. Le Petomane Thruway. Toll 10 cents." It even has an Exact Change Lane, but none of the gang have dimes, so Taggart orders: "Has anybody got a dime? Somebody's gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes." Each one of the riders waits patiently as they proceed through the booth - one at a time. Of course, neither Taggart or his men notice that the toll booth is in the middle of the expansive desert and that they could easily ride around the gate crossing. The gang is fooled by the cardboard cutouts of the townspeople that are positioned on the streets of the duplicated town. As Taggart's gang rides through the town, Bart plunges down on a dynamite detonator while warning:
But it fails to explode the dynamite cache. Taggart realizes the town is a fake: "We've been suckered in," he yells to his men, but it's too late. Bart urges the Waco Kid to aim at the dynamite and detonate it. A crack-shot from the Waco Kid's gun sets off the blast and bodies of horses and men fly into the air. Bart, the Kid, the townspeople, Mongo, and the chain gang laborers swoop down into the town to 'wipe 'em out' with clubs and hand-to-hand combat. The film ends with an absurd brawl between the good guys and the bad guys. The film parodies itself when the camera pulls back to show that the film is being shot on a present-day Hollywood set in the middle of Los Angeles. In an adjoining soundstage on the lot, a pseudo-Busby Berkeley musical number ("The French Mistake") with an all-gay cast of men in black tuxedos and top hats is being directed by an effeminate choreographer named Buddy Bizarre (Dom DeLuise). The song they sing is overtly gay, and hints at anal sex:
Bizarre yells "Cut" and "Wrong!" He criticizes the dancers and demands that they watch his own flawed demonstration: "Just watch me. It's so simple, you sissy Marys! Give me the playback! And watch me, faggots." The cast responds with a lisp: "Yessssssssssssssssss!" to which Buddy replies: "Sounds like steam escaping." The chaotic fighting from the Blazing Saddles set bursts through the wall, bringing the two conflicting film genres together. Buddy Bizarre yells for the action to stop:
The fighting degenerates with both casts getting into the act. The brawl is about to spill over into the studio's commissary where bikini clad actresses, a Hitler-look-alike (Ralph Manza), and others are eating. The Adolph Hitler character responds to a question about how many days he has left: "They lose me right after the bunker scene." As the place erupts in fighting (sped-up frantically), every actor and extra at the studios soon joins in the 'great pie fight' - a massive food fight [pie fights were typical of the classic slapstick comedies of early cinema]. When Taggart is slid down the commissary food counter, he becomes covered in food - and is charged by the cashier for everything splattered on him:
The mob of brawlers at the studios of Warner Bros. Pictures empties into the streets of Los Angeles. Still dressed as Hedley Lamarr, Harvey Korman (with a white-face of pie cream) sneaks out of a men's bathroom and hails a yellow taxi to escape the mob of fighting cowboys. As he jumps in, he asks the cabbie: "Drive me off this picture." Cleavon Little, still dressed as Bart, follows close behind in pursuit on horseback. Lamarr is driven to Grauman's Chinese Theatre [in downtown Hollywood - famous for the cement footprints of film celebrities] where the marquee flashes the current film Blazing Saddles. To hide and escape from Bart, Hedley pays for one full admission to the film after failing to convince the attendant that he is a student. A female tourist remarks to her husband as she tries out the footprints of actress Hedy Lamarr: "Look, Herman, I'm in Hedy Lamarr's shoes!" Hedley corrects her as he passes by: "Hedley." In the lobby of the theatre are noisy, bleating cattle as he purchases Raisinettes at the candy counter. As the film begins to play with the familiar opening song, Lamarr suddenly realizes that he is going to be viewing Blazing Saddles and he exits in disgust. Outside, he is outdrawn in a gunfight with Bart and shot in the groin. As Lamarr falls and dies in front of the theatre, he studies the cement imprints (hand and feet) of Douglas Fairbanks:
He lands in fresh cement - before he expires, he scratches out his own name followed by a dollar sign in the wet cement for his own epitaph. Bart and the Waco Kid enter the theatre to see the end of the film, both wishing for a happy ending. Back on the screen (in the film within a film), the film does end with a happy conclusion as the people of the saved town of Rock Ridge ask Bart to stay, but he declines, claiming he's needed elsewhere. They say goodbye to their black sheriff, who bids them goodbye with the obligatory farewell speech:
As he rides off, Bart tells everyone: "Keep the faith, brothers!" Around the corner, a snoozing Waco Kid asks if he may join Bart:
They both ride into the sunset toward "Nowhere Special." In fact, outside of town they climb off their horses and jump into a chauffeured Cadillac limousine - to be driven into the sunset. |
As he brushes Lamarr's back during a soap-sudsy bath,
Taggart expresses upset that Mongo couldn't eliminate the sheriff: "I
thought sure that Mongo would just mash him up into little-bitty
sheriff meatballs. I just don't understand it." The attorney
general hasn't given up and has a new creative plan - to use his
beautiful paramour to seduce Bart: