ONE SADDLE AFTER ANOTHER

Last week Your Humble Narrator had the huge honor to introduce a showing of one of my very favorite movies, the Mel Brooks classic Blazing Saddles...

...at Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West, and to lead the post-movie discussion. I'm delighted to say it seemed to go over great; the surprisingly large audience that turned out on a Thursday afternoon to watch a movie from 1974 laughed hard and left happy. Admittedly, a large majority of the crowd, based on a show of hands, had already seen it.

Here are the notes I prepared for my intro:

The danger in discussing Blazing Saddles with people who have never seen it is that of overselling it. It doesn't need to be taken as anything but a very silly, strange and surreal low-comedy send-up of Western movies, especially of the "socially conscious" 50s-era sort like Broken Arrow and Johnny Guitar, with dashes of other classics like Destry Rides Again. The jokes are TV sketch comedy in style, heavy-handed and brash, at times almost childlike. Even the potty-mouth profanities and obscenities, scandalous at the time, and the racial epithets--far more scandalous nowadays--have the quality of adolescent showing off.

But I love the film, because of its heart. It's not as confident and well-made a piece cinema as the next Brooks film, Young Frankenstein, which came out later that same year. But great as Young Frankenstein is, i think the more ragged Blazing Saddles is funnier, and more moving, because it engages with racial conflicts that are painfully perennial in American society. These jokes were as relevant in 1974 as they would have been in 1874, and they're still infuriatingly relevant to our time. The freewheeling use of epithets can be hard on the contemporary ear, and today's audiences may also squirm at the gay stereotypes near the end. But while I'm not remotely comparing the stature of Blazing Saddles to that of Huckleberry Finn, the two works have this much in common: they never use those words for any reason other than to make racists look idiotic.

Finally I would like to mention that the film is full of wonderful acting. Brooks has said that Cleavon Little wasn't his first choice the hero Bart; he wanted Richard Pryor, who worked on the screenplay. But great as Pryor would likely have been, Little's warmth and openhearted cheeriness is irresistible. The supporting players, from Harvey Korman's sneering villain Hedley Lamarr to Brooks himself as the befuddled Governor to Alex Karras as the eloquent Mongo to Slim Pickens with his hilariously aggrieved line readings to the great David Huddleston, who memorably enacts the exact moment when a lifelong bigot finally gets tired and gives up on racism.

But two members of the cast are transcendent: Gene Wilder gives one of the most relaxed and lovable expressions of his persona, that peerless combination of gentleness and strangled volatility. And Madeleine Khan is angelic as the Dietrich-esque chanteuse Lilli von Schtupp; her marvelous number "I'm Tired" may be the high-water mark of her career. And now that I've thoroughly oversold it, here, from Warner Brothers in 1974, is Blazing Saddles.

I would also note that a middle-aged guy in the audience, alluding to my mention of the uncomfortable--though obviously affectionate--gay stereotypes in the film, dismissed the concern with "Nah, I'm gay and I love them."

GHOSTS AND DEMONS AND EVEN WILDER YET

Opening this weekend:

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire--This fifth feature in the franchise begins with a nice macabre episode set in 1904, like something from a creepier version of Disney's Haunted Mansion. This is followed by an extended chase through the streets of Manhattan, as the current Ghostbusters pursue, in the "Ectomobile," an eel-like flying dragon spirit up from the sewers.

It's a reasonably diverting start, and the movie goes on to deploy, in addition to Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon and the kids from 2021's Ghostbusters: Afterlife, most of the available stars from the 1984 original. Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, Williams Atherton and Bill Murray show up--no Sigourney Weaver or Rick Moranis, alas--and not just in cameos but with fairly substantive screen time. I was disappointed that the all-woman crew from the much-maligned and underrated 2016 version wasn't invited to this party, but apparently fans are still traumatized.

Anyway, the old vets here are good company--Murray with his peerless sardonic line readings, Akyroyd with his gee-whiz delivery of expository gibberish. A couple of new adds, like Patton Oswalt as an authority on the occult and Kumail Nanjiani as a clod who sells Aykroyd the spherical ancient artifact that serves as the McGuffin, also get into the proper, uhm, spirit of things.

On the whole the movie, directed by Gil Kenan from a script by Kenan and Jason Reitman, is an enjoyable lavish no-brainer. The closest it gets to any emotional weight is an intriguing plot strand in which the teenage heroine (Mckenna Grace) bonds, seemingly romantically, with a teen ghost (Emily Alyn Lind) after she's forbidden to go 'busting until she turns 18; the actors manage a touching rapport even through the special effects prism.

But if Frozen Empire--which concerns a horned demon with freezing superpowers imprisoned inside the McGuffin--doesn't feel like a home run, it may be the result of too much wholesomeness. The teen romance and bickering family dynamic didn't quite feel like Ghostbusters to me, somehow. What made the '84 film seem new was its mix of extravagant, big-budget special effects spectacle with the snarky, irreverent slacker sketch-comedy of Murray and the other stars. Only when Frozen Empire taps into this sensibility does it truly thaw out.

The movie is dedicated to Ivan Reitman, director of the original, and this film, like several of the others, includes a nod to Cannibal Girls, Rietman's 1973 shocker starring the impossibly young and adorable Andrea Martin and Eugene Levy. I hope it makes fans seek out that amusing low-budget creepshow; there's a movie that doesn't suffer from too much wholesomeness. 

Late Night With the Devil--Here's another wry paranormal chiller set in New York, although it was conceived by the Australian brothers Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes and filmed in Melbourne. The premise is that we're watching the 1976 Halloween episode of a syndicated talk show, a perennial also-ran in the ratings to Johnny Carson. Desperate for a sweeps win, the recently widowed host (David Dastmalchian) stacks the guest list with a hokey stage psychic (Fayssal Bazzi), an Amazing Randi-type skeptic (Ian Bliss), and a psychiatrist (Laura Gordon) and her patient, an angelically smiling teenage girl (Ingrid Torelli). This girl was rescued from a cult and just might be possessed.

From the set to the music to the "More to Come" break cards, the Cairnes Brothers truly capture the look and feel of anything-goes '70s talk shows to a degree that will be nostalgic to those of us who remember them. The movie also evokes sources of the period from The Exorcist to Network (Michael Ironside provides stentorian narration in the manner of Network's Lee Richardson), and the soundtrack includes the likes of Flo & Eddie's "Keep It Warm."

The "found footage" conceit is quickly strained; the supposed "behind the scenes" sequences are pretty cinematic and helpfully narrative. But after a while you accept it, largely because the acting, especially the haunted yet game showmanship of the excellent Dastmalchian, keeps us involved.

It's a little scary, but mostly Late Night With the Devil is, like Network, a tongue-in-cheek satire of TV business culture, with ripe lines like "Ladies and gentlemen, a live television first, as we attempt to communicate with...the Devil. But not before a word from our sponsors." I also loved the implication that no amount of supernatural power could overtake Carson in the ratings in those days. Apparently even the Devil couldn't do that.

At Harkins Shea...

Remembering Gene Wilder--This documentary, directed by Ron Frank, does indeed fondly remember the late comedy great. Frank makes Wilder himself the narrator, using audiobook excerpts from his noirishly-titled 2005 memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger.

Born Jerry Silberman in Milwaukee, he grew up trying to make his mother laugh, and later drew inspiration from the mental patients he worked with while serving in the U.S. Army. He wanted, he says, something a bit "wilder" for his stage name when he started acting in New York. Cast in Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children at the Martin Beck Theatre in the early '60s, he met leading lady Anne Bancroft's future husband Mel Brooks, who later cast him in The Producers.

From there, we get a chronicle of some of the highlights of Wilder's movie career--not all of them; Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx and Start the Revolution Without Me, for instance, are passed over. But there's terrific material on Bonnie and Clyde, The Producers, Willy Wonka, Young Frankenstein, his relationship with Richard Pryor, his scenes with the sheep in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (he says that Allen told him that he wanted to do a version of Sister Carrie with a sheep instead of Jennifer Jones), and more. My own favorite of Wilder's characters, Jim aka The Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles, is very well represented here.

Talking heads include Brooks, Carol Kane, Mike Medavoy, Alan Alda, Ben Mankiewicz, Rain Pryor, Harry Connick, Jr., Eric McCormack, and Willy Wonka's Charlie Bucket himself, Peter Ostrum, as well as Wilder's widow Karen Wilder, all speaking with unmistakable love. They tell good stories, but the real joy is simply the big dose of Wilder's utterly sui generis blend of innocent sweetness and strangled volatility. If the clips in this movie don't make you smile, you may need to see a doctor.

SADDLES SOARS

Check out my column, online at Phoenix Magazine, on two cool flicks...

John Carpenter's They Live played already Saturday in Scottsdale, but you can still catch the Mel Brooks masterpiece Blazing Saddles this Tuesday night, May 23; it's the "Tuesday Night Classic" this week at Harkins Theatres...

WILDER THING

RIP to the beautiful Gene Wilder, whose one-of-a-kind combination of gentleness and manic intensity places him among the greats of American comedy. I love him most for perhaps his least manic role, as Jim, the amiably detached Waco Kid, in Blazing Saddles...

...and also as Willy Wonka, dreamily singing “There’s no earthly way of knoooowing….Which direction we are gooooing…” He was a terrific foil to Richard Pryor in Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, and he gave classic performances in The Producers, Start the Revolution Without Me and few other uneven films. But many regard the 1974 Mel Brooks favorite Young Frankenstein, which Wilder co-wrote and in which he played the title character, as his finest hour. It’s certainly wonderful, so…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week we can hardly do other than give the nod to the Monster in that film, splendidly played by Peter Boyle…

…with whom young Dr. Frankenstein (FRONK-en-steen) performs “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

ROYALE WATCHING

Sunday afternoon Your Humble Narrator & The Kid betook ourselves to The Royale, the Midnite Movie Mamacita’s nouveau-grindhouse in downtown Mesa, for a screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory benefitting Kids Need to Read. Not for the first time, I was struck by how really messed-up, on many different levels, that movie is, in spite (& at times because of) Gene Wilder’s classic turn as Wonka.

But it was a lot of fun anyway, & I swelled with pride to see my two contributions to The Royale’s décor. First, this poster for the 1955 Republic serial Panther Girl of the Kongo, starring sexy Phyllis Coates:

Seeing this so prominently displayed in the lobby delighted me, because it was a legacy from my dear late pal & mentor Bill Rocz, who passed on in 1996. Valley folk will remember Bill as the movie critic at Channel 5 & host of that station’s Family Classics & Hollywood Greats. I had enjoyed the Panther Girl in my home office for years, but there was no place she fit in our current house, & she had been in storage for more than five years. I can think of few places that Bill would more wish to see her than her new home.

The Royale has also offered shelter to The Great Shuggahoo, a big wooden Tiki that hung over my desk for years, but who was also out of place—according to The Wife—in the current Moorhead Hacienda. Shuggahoo (named after an alien ruler in some head comic I read decades ago) has an important gig at The Royale—guarding the commode:

He looks pretty sullen about the detail, wouldn’t you say?