Resonant Constellation

I recently re-watched one of my all-time favorite movies, Blazing Saddles. I love this movie so much that one summer I watched it every morning right after I woke up. Once I watched it with the sound off and filled in all of the dialogue by myself (I was assisted by my brother). You can probably tell, I really enjoy Mel Brooks movies. There are one or two I haven’t seen, though, including Silent Movie, so when I watched Blazing Saddles, I resolved to find and watch those that I haven’t yet seen.

I started with Silent Movie, not knowing what to expect. Immediately, however, I knew it was going to be good. The main characters are Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, and Dom DeLuise. When they drove up all crammed into the front seat of the little yellow car, I knew this movie was going to be awesome. I was not wrong.

When Mel talks to the studio owner (Sid Ceaser) trying to pitch his silent movie (which we are to assume is the one we are watching), the owner refuses to produce it and says “Slapstick is dead.” Then he falls into his chair, which falls over and zooms across the room through his desk to impact on the far wall. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. In the same scene, when the owner says that Mel can do the movie, Mel says “When the guys hear about this, they’ll flip!” And they actually flip, several times.

There’s so many awesome things in this movie (such as Marcel Marceau, the famous mime, saying the only line, playing pong on the hospital heart monitor, Marty Feldman’s entire scene trying to get onto the elevator, “would you mind dancing with a mild-mannered pervert?”, the wheelchair race scene, the comically oversized bottle of booze Mel obtains from the liquor store, “He is truly the lord of the winos”, the poster for Young Frankenstein at the theater, the simple undeniable fact of Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman, this list could go on forever). This film proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that slapstick is far from dead, it is hilarious. I highly recommend it.