Blazing Saddles

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy Western	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1974	Commentary Tracks	Yes, 1 - Mel Brooks (Director/Supporting Actor)
Running Time	89 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies Production Notes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	4	Director	Mel Brooks
Studio Distributor	Warner Brothers	Starring	Cleavon Little Gene Wilder Slim Pickens David Huddleston Liam Dunn Alex Karras John Hillerman George Furth Claude Ennis Starrett, Jr. Mel Brooks Harvey Korman Madeline Kahn
Case	Snapper
RRP	$29.95	Music	John Morris

    From here, the plot leaves us for lots of slapstick, and the crude shtick which is the trademark of Mel Brooks. Madeline Kahn helps out as Lili Von Shtapp, and Mel Brooks himself doubles as the lazy Governor Lepetoman and the Indian Chief. Things spiral downwards, becoming more and more farcical and self-referential until they all ride off into the sunset together.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. Apparently this is the first time this movie has been available uncut and in its original aspect ratio in Australia.

    The transfer was reasonably clear at times, but quite grainy at other times. One particularly section of the movie was in very bad shape, between 37:29 and 37:42. Shadow detail was lacking, but this is typical of movies from this period. This is not a major problem. No particular low level noise was apparent.

    The colours were generally quite well rendered and clearly defined in this transfer, except during periods of aliasing.

    MPEG artefacts were discernible at times, such as during the opening credits, where there is considerable loss of picture definition during the zooming of the titles.

    Film-to-video artefacts consisted of severe aliasing, which occurred frequently. As a result of this, any shot which involved camera panning movement either horizontally or vertically broke up and shimmered dreadfully, with the addition of MPEG artefacts during these times to compound the problem. This was by far the worst problem with this transfer, making it almost painful to watch at times. The latter half of the movie has this artefact less frequently, presumably because the type of shots shown in this part of the movie were not as prone to aliasing as some of the earlier shots were.

    Film artefacts were frequent at times, and rare at other times. Overall, I felt that these artefacts were acceptable for a movie of this age.

Audio

    Dialogue was usually easy to understand, though it was severely limited in both frequency response and dynamic range, and often quite distorted. It sounds very much like the original optical soundtrack was simply transferred to this DVD with no processing at all.

    There were not specific audio sync problems with this disc that could be described as transfer related. Some of the songs which were clearly added in post-production were marginally out of sync, but this would have occurred during the filmmaking process, not during the transfer to DVD.

    The music by John Morris was suitably Western in style, and appropriate for the movie, but otherwise unremarkable.

     The surround channels were not used.

    The .1 channel was not used.

Menu

Audio Commentary

Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew Biographies

Production Notes

    The video quality is significantly flawed, with severe aliasing problems.

    The audio quality is compressed, frequency-limited and distorted mono.

    The extras present are acceptable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
25th March 1999