When it came to working on the script, there was never a subject I thought was off-limits or untouchable. If we thought of something, if it even entered our minds, no matter how bizarre or how crazy or dirty or wild or savage or not socially acceptable…we would still do it. Because if it came into our minds, it was worth exploring. The tone I set for the writing team was the freedom that comes from having nothing to lose. In the writing of Blazing Saddles, we had absolutely no restrictions on any and all subjects.
The plot was familiar to Western fans: In the 1874 Old West, a crooked politician, Hedley Lamarr, “attorney general, assistant to the governor, and state procurer,” is working for the governor, William J. Lepetomane, “a silver-haired, silver-tongued moron.” They are trying to run the citizens out of the town of Rock Ridge to get the land on the cheap so they can profit off the incoming transcontinental railroad.
Hedley Lamarr muses to himself, “Unfortunately, there is one thing that stands between me and that property—the rightful owners.”
To placate the Rock Ridge citizens’ demand for a sheriff, Lamarr has a stroke of brilliance: He will send them as their new lawman a Black sheriff, assuming that once the townspeople get a look at their new sheriff they will pack up and leave town. But somehow “Black Bart” wins them over and with the help of an ex-alcoholic gunslinger, the Waco Kid, turns the tables on Lamarr and saves the day.
That was a good simple standard plot. We decided to twist it, turn it, and stand it on its ear. We threw crazy comedy bits into the mix. In one scene Bart becomes Bugs Bunny. We just stole it, but it was a Warner Bros. cartoon, and since we were also a Warner Bros. picture, we knew we could get away with it. I also included the “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges” reference from the Humphrey Bogart and John Huston film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre—also a Warner Bros. film.
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Sheriff Bart’s entrance was spectacular. Instead of background music we used foreground music. We started the scene with the great Count Basie and his orchestra playing his famous hit song “April in Paris” in the middle of the prairie. I was sure the audience would wonder, “How did Count Basie and his orchestra end up in the middle of the Mojave Desert?” Into the shot rides Sheriff Bart dressed in his cool, with-it Gucci outfit and saddlebags. On the page it was daring, but on the screen it was spectacular. I don’t think anyone had ever done anything like that before.
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Here in the middle of the prairie, the great Count Basie plays his famous rendition of “April in Paris” to bring on new sheriff Cleavon Little, seen in the distance riding into Rock Ridge.
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One of the reasons that I was attracted to Blazing Saddles was that even though it was a wild comedy, it had a great engine beneath the comedy that was driving it. If I ever taught comedy or comedy movies to film students, I would tell them crazy comedy alone doesn’t work. If you want a comedy to last, there’s a secret you must follow: You have to have an engine driving it. In Blazing Saddles, there’s a very serious backstory. Racial prejudice is the engine that really drives the film and helps to make it work.
Here’s an example, where the Waco Kid is consoling the Black sheriff who has just been crushed by a racial insult:
Waco Kid: What did you expect? “Welcome, sonny”? “Make yourself at home.” “Marry my daughter”? You’ve got to remember these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know…Morons.
It turns a bitter heartache into a great laugh.
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I’ve also always been hard on language. Language has rhythm that I respect. When I was a kid all I ever wanted to be was a drummer, and a lot of that filtered down into my use of language. I mean there’s a phenomenon called a rim shot. The sound is produced by simultaneously hitting the rim and head of a drum with a drumstick. As far as I’m concerned, a joke has to end with a rim shot. For example, character names. Lili Von Shtupp—that’s a rim shot. Even if the audience doesn’t understand the subtext, they get the rhythm. I also decided to name every citizen in Rock Ridge “Johnson.” I figured why waste time coming up with last names? Johnson covers it. There will never be a better Western name than Johnson. Our Johnsons included Van Johnson, named after the actor; Olsen Johnson after the famous vaudeville team; Samuel Johnson, the famed English writer; and finally Howard Johnson after the twenty-eight-flavor ice cream and hotel chain.
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Six months after our first writing session, we had a rough draft called Black Bart. We thought that was appropriate because the sheriff was Black, and Black Bart was a well-known Western name because there was actually an American outlaw with that nickname in the Old West who left poetic messages behind after his robberies. Black Bart was a good title, but it wasn’t crazy enough. It didn’t tell you anything about the nature of the picture. Then one day I was taking a shower, my hair was full of soap and maybe I cleaned my brain because it hit me: Blazing Saddles. Two Western clichés, “blazing” and “saddles.” No one had ever put them together, and for good reason: They simply don’t go together. However, they cry “Crazy Western!” and that’s what we were making, a crazy Western. That title tells you everything.
So Blazing Saddles it was.
Making a satiric comedy serves two audiences equally and simultaneously: the audience that gets every film reference and all of the subtext, and the other audience that has never seen or heard of any related film. I wanted Blazing Saddles to work on its own. What I mean by that is even if you’d never seen a Western before you’d still get it. I try to lace my movies with cultural references, but I’ve always been careful that they’re not weighed down by anything too arcane or inaccessible. I never came with any prerequisites. The only requirement for a Mel Brooks film is that you come in ready to laugh.
So with the rough draft done, I took Andrew Bergman and Norman Steinberg with me to Hollywood, and we continued polishing the script there.
Then we started casting. It was daunting.
Of course, we wanted Richard Pryor to play the Black sheriff, but Warner Bros. said no. They were afraid of his erratic behavior. No matter how much I begged and pleaded, Warner Bros. always gave me a firm no.
So who could we get to play the Black sheriff? A search that ended by me taking another great bounce. Instead of my first choice for Black Bart, I found somebody who was made for the role, born to play it. A Broadway actor who was handsome, sophisticated, and winning. The truly talented Cleavon Little. After he read one page of dialogue I grabbed him, embraced him, and I said, “Cleavon, don’t ask for too much money and you’ve got the part!”
We both knew that a good thing had happened. Even Richard Pryor agreed wholeheartedly that Cleavon was the perfect choice for the role.
On the set of Blazing Saddles, not making the mistake of giving Cleavon direction that he didn’t need.