50 years ago, 'Blazing Saddles' broke wind — and box office expectations
Mel Brooks' satirical Western got mixed reviews when it opened in February 1974, but it became the year's biggest box office hit.
Fifty years ago, Mel Brooks released Blazing Saddles to gales of laughter and a mighty roar of flatulence jokes.
Also to mixed reviews from harrumphing critics. Typical was Vincent Canby, whose New York Times review lamented the film's "desperate, bone crushing efforts to be funny."
The critics eventually came around, though it took a while. By the film's 30th anniversary, NBC's Today Show was acknowledging that its laughs were in the service of a plot that "skewers just about every aspect of racial prejudice."
