Gene Wilder is perfect as the alcoholic gunslinger the Waco Kid, and Madeline Kahn steals the show as a Dietrich-like chanteuse.

Most of the gags in Blazing Saddles never were very funny, and probably Brooks knows that and thinks that what's funny about those rotten old jokes is how unfunny they are.

Most of the shorter sequences work nicely. The superb comedienne Madeline Kahn has a role as Lili Von Shtuppe that la a wonderful excuse for her to do a Marlene Dietrich imitation.

A deeply moral movie that tap-dances on third-rail subject matter and throws around verboten language to call out the violent racism and hypocrisy undergirding America’s cherished frontier myths.