Music of the Day, 29 June 2024
happy 98th birthday to a legendary actor, filmmaker, and songwriter
Twitter reminded me1 that today is the great Mel Brooks’ birthday. He may be best known as one of the best comedy filmmakers ever—and rightly so—but he was also a good actor and songwriter.
Thus it was that on reading the tweet, today’s MotD came to mind. Brooks wrote the music and lyrics for this song, as well as two others in what might be his best movie.
I’m sure I didn’t see Blazing Saddles in 1974. Not because my parents objected to anything in it: they couldn’t afford to take the entire family to the movies. My best guess is I saw it for the first time a few years later, on a date. I don’t remember his reaction, but I do remember howling with laughter. This four-minute song is emblematic of why: it’s suffused with humor—in the lyrics, Madeline Kahn’s singing, and the sight gags.
The multitalented Kahn was actually an excellent singer, as another clip from a different Mel Brooks movie demonstrates. Her performance here is a sendup of Marlene Dietrich’s singing; when I learned that, it deepened my appreciation for Kahn’s work.
Brooks himself played three parts in Blazing Saddles. My favorite is probably his bit as a Yiddish-speaking American Indian. I know that for a lot of people who weren’t alive back then, this kind of comedy is problematic, to put it mildly. To me, it remains a brilliant skewering of racial prejudices.
And I guess I know what I’ll be watching later today. Happy birthday to Mel Brooks, with deep thanks for all the laughs.
it is still useful in some ways!
"Blazing Saddles" is Mel's magnum film opus (he has equally definitive work in other genres and mediums) and one of the films that has influenced me the most of any. It seems like, when I write climaxes in my longer stories, they seem to resemble the one in that movie...
It’s twue, it’s twue, I do so miss Madeline Khan.