The Last Blazing Saddles

Is there anyone else at home this weekend? They tell us all the camping spaces on the west coast (perhaps the country) have been booked for months (maybe years).

It was a quiet day at home. Ok, not so quiet this evening. After this afternoon’s Indy Racing League race from Belle Isle in Detroit, we checked out the television schedule expecting to catch up with Big Brother. That didn’t happen. We’ve learned to see what HDNet Movies has for late afternoon starts (this is the pacific time zone), and what was there today? The Last Detail, followed by Blazing Saddles. It’s been decades, so we settled in for a comedy double feature – one a bit dark, one…well, it’s Mel Brooks, right?

Bittersweet, funny, a period piece for the time it was made, 1973, The Last Detail is a real classic. Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid turned in performances that rank among their best ever…and that’s saying something, isn’t it? Quaid was nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as young sailor Larry Meadows, who’s being escorted to an eight year stretch in the Portsmouth Navy Brig by Billy ‘Bad Ass’ Buddusky (Nicholson), and ‘Mule’ Mulhall (Otis Young). My favorite Nicholson line captures the sense of it, “Marines are assholes, ya know? It takes a kind of sadistic temperament to be a marine.”

The Last Detail is well worth a couple of hours. (Look for Gilda Radner in a bit part.) There’s talk of an many-years-later sequel, and Quaid’s said he reprise his role if Nicholson will do the same.

Blazing Saddles is a different proposition of course. If you haven’t seen this one, you’re going to be left out of a lot of knee slapping party conversation, reduced to quizzical looks and weak smiles on the quote of lines like, “What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?”

Alex Karras wasn’t in any danger of an Oscar nomination as the half-witted Mongo. Still, he’s a perfect foil for lines like, “Never mind that shit! Here comes Mongo,” and deadpans his own classic, “Mongo only pawn in game of life.” Madeline Khan parodies Marlene Dietrich, as Lily von Schtupp, with a show-stopping saloon song, "I'm Tired" ("I'm not a wabbit! I need some west!").

Cleavon Little, as Sheriff Bart, recounts surprise at his survival, with this “You shifty nigger, they said you was hung!” His retort? “And they was right.”

We did, however, do a quick check of Big Brother, long enough to get this gem from Zach, “Can you really trust a guy named Dick?”