灼热的马鞍

1.完全无了解观影

2.开场黑白对歌预示了本片风格。

3.排队吊刑、州长对权色的表现很美国。

4.大香肠

5.结尾乱入歌舞片影棚、演员餐厅、众人冲出华纳大门、商人买票出示学生卡、影院入口展示的牛、地上的名人手印、看电影前买的小饼干，决斗后在地上写上名字，都是对电影工业的致敬。

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1974 is a banner year for Mel Brooks, before releasing YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, “the scariest comedy of all time!”, BLAZING SADDLES is a rip-roaring parody of horse opera that subverts everything in the genre, and then some.

First of all, our hero is an African-American railroad worker Bart (a terrifically chirpy Little), who has been appointed as the new sheriff in the frontier town Rock Ridge, as a cunning stratagem to inflame a racist riot to the benefit of the vile attorney general Hedley Lamarr (Korman), who hopes the town will be ruptured inwardly and pave the way for his new railroad business. But Lamarr’s ploy backfires spectacularly, not only the parochial townspeople (all sharing the same family name Johnson) doesn’t rail against Bart, after being stumped by the latter’s self-sustained “two-man” act of hostage and impressed by his ingenuity in subduing the bozo strongman Mongo (Karras), sent by Lamarr’s lackey Taggart (Pickens), they even warm up to Bart, soon it becomes a losing game for Lamarr out the wazoo, aided by a Caucasian sidekick in the person of the dead-eye gunslinger Jim (Wilder), Bart is indomitable and if you think building an entire town’s replica within 12 hours is scarcely credible, wait for the final ten minutes of the film, it will just blow your mind.

Brooks goes whole hog in this whimsically jocular satire, where sparks and N-words fly, he is not deterred by touching a raw nerve of USA’s inveterate racism and discrimination, and plays up to the stereotypes and preconceptions with a winking archness (the content of his sideswipes and mockery ranging from indigenous Indians, Ku Klux Klansmen, Irish immigrants, Nazi members to Methodist). However, the most sidesplitting gag comes from the nonpareil Madeline Kahn, as the Teutonic seductress Lili Von Shtupp, who walks away with an Oscar nomination by fantastically impersonating a world-weary version of Marlene Dietrich and belting out “I’m Tired” with an exhilarating air of lassitude and knowingness, not to mention nailing a well-endowed joke like nobody’s business.

Also deviously funny is Harvey Korman’s Lamarr, who is constantly ruffled by being called Hedy instead of Hedley (a subpoena sent on behalf of Ms. Lamarr is definitely on the way), and delectably articulates the most treacherous mouthfuls with such distinction that even his wiles are effulgent to a fault, whether he is coaxing Gov. William J. Le Petomane (a boss-eyed Brooks in one of the umpteen roles he plays here), or being soft-soaped by the feckless Taggart. All the greater, he has a self-revealing declaration that his wrongdoings might cost him an Oscar nomination, and his prescience unfortunately is eventuated.

Most outrageously, BLAZING SADDLES really bowls audience over near its coda that brandishes its subversive, anachronistic élan to the hilt, in the white heat of the final good-vs.-evil showdown, the fourth wall is abruptly broken by a craning shot and reveals the contemporary setting, whereupon the ongoing rough and tumble is literally transited onto the lot of Warner Brothers studio (a Busby Berkeley-esque musical nonetheless), a western brawl escalates into a pie-throwing three-ring circus, but when Lamarr escapes into a cinema where the film itself is screened, an inexplicable mise en abyme is actualized with a Möbius loop, how could that happen if the film hasn’t been finished by that point? Is it just a loophole in the setting? Apparently, a head-scratcher is not in Brooks’ intention, one might guess, but that is why BLAZING SADDLES is so fun and ingenious in jostling for the lulz and at the same time, throwing audience for a delirious loop.

referential entries: Brooks’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974, 8.1/10); THE PRODUCERS (1967, 7.2/10).

尽管本片也许算不上是梅尔·布鲁克斯的巅峰之作-制片人们还是大为震惊，反应强烈-影片融合了超现实主义、闹剧，以及粗俗内容（这点在当时堪称创举），《灼热的马鞍》无疑是他最具影响力的影片。抛开它那并无新奇之处的背景设置（古老的西部），以及它给观众带来的1970年代的印象（有关种族和性的低俗笑话）不论，它如今仍然是这位了不起的1950年代喜剧编剧相对出色的作品之一。 虽说布鲁克斯向马克思兄弟的滑稽喜剧和活宝三人组所作的致敬众所周知，然而《灼热的马鞍》也大大地借鉴了早期的《疯狂杂志》（MadMagazine）中那些疯狂的、滑稽模仿式的、旁征博引的幽默。布鲁克斯的电影沿袭了这一传统-片中有这样一些无声滑稽表演：三K党成员和纳粹党人争相参加1870年代的一场处私刑的活动，牛群身上刷有YES和NO字样，从其他影片中引用的台词（“你要为伦道夫·斯考特做事！”）-将其首次纳入到电影当中。本片由此对祖克兄弟和他们的效仿者产生了影响，继而开创了一种电影类型（结尾还有一些蒙提·派森［Monty Python］的表演，与《圣杯》［Holy Grail］的结尾如出一辙）。 《灼热的马鞍》一片的创作本意也许是想从《正午》（High Noon）-片引申开来，在此基础上加以发挥，但本片的特色远不止是滑稽模仿。虽说布鲁克斯日后的其他作品，仅仅满足于充当某一特定影片单纯的模仿品，但《灼热的马鞍》却加入了多种其他层次的趣味，其中最明显的要数这一变动：本片中的警长是个黑人。理查德·利特尔（Cleavon Little，本片是他事业生涯的顶峰，五十三岁那年他患结肠癌去世，令人难过）取代普赖尔（Richard Pryor）担任巴特（Bart）警长的角色，出现这一结果，在很大程度上是因为制片公司相信，普赖尔的毒瘾很重；吉恩·怀尔德以克制的表演，颇为出色地为他充当了配角。片中带“n”的词（译注：指对黑人的蔑称“黑鬼”一词）比比皆是，其泛滥程度足以令对当代说唱乐唱片并不熟悉的观众感到担忧，但其实这很好笑。虽说《灼热的马鞍》算不上是什么有关种族问题的政治立场影片，不过它那搞笑的措辞方式和对白人偏见的嘲弄，让种族歧视这一想法本身都显得荒唐可笑。