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Short and blocky, he has a nose once described as “a small mudslide,” a grin that loops almost from ear to ear like a tenement laundry line and the flat-out energy of a buffalo stampede. Film producers also acknowledge that the strongest creative impulse behind the boom is the maniacal imagination and energy of one of the very few moviemakers since Charlie Chaplin who is unarguably a comic genius-Mel Brooks.īrooks is an American Rabelais.
#BLAZING SADDLES BOUNCING BALLS GAME MOVIE#
Will the current economic recession bring on another comedy boom? Movie producers think so the 1975 production docket is packed with laugh-it-up scripts.
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The poor, on the other hand, need to laugh in order to forget how little they have to laugh about-which may be why the Depression was the last golden age of comedy in American movies. “The rich,” according to a Spanish proverb, “laugh carefully.” They have a lot to lose.
#BLAZING SADDLES BOUNCING BALLS GAME ARCHIVE#
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Follow her at /marthajross.This article originally appeared in the February 1975 issue of Playboy. Martha Ross provides celebrity commentary for the Bay Area News Group. I got a young Jew from New York - and he was magnificent.” And he never said, ‘I told you so.’ I wanted an old alky. Gene just hooked his boots, hung down and said, ‘Are we black?'”īrooks continued: “He saved my life, because he’s not only a genius actor, but he’s a good friend. “We only lost a half a day, because I’d covered with Cleavon the other half of that first day - his close-ups, his entrance. “On Monday morning, eight o’clock, he was hanging upside down,” Brooks said. Wilder couldn’t refuse the opportunity to play the part he really wanted and was on a morning flight the next day. That’s when he finally relented and called Wilder, who was set to fly off to London to begin filming “The Little Prince.” I had no movie.”īrooks had to stop production and needed a new Waco Kid ASAP. And, I said, ‘That’s the last time I’ll ever cast anybody who really is that person.’ If you want an alcoholic, don’t cast an alcoholic… Anyway, poor Gig Young, it was the first shot on Friday, nine in the morning, and an ambulance came and took him away. Great.’ And then it got serious, because the shaking never stopped, and green stuff started spewing out of his mouth and nose, and he started screaming. And he started to talk and he started shaking. Young, however, was reportedly going through withdrawal for his alcoholism.īrooks recalled, “We draped Gig Young’s legs over and hung him upside down. On the first morning of filming, Cleavon Little and Young began shooting the jail cell scene, where their two characters meet. He was also known around Hollywood to have a serious drinking problem.īrooks thought, “He’s an old alky, great.” Young had long been known as the handsome, urbane second leading man in Doris Day comedies, but he won his Oscar for playing a sleazy 1930s dance marathon emcee in 1969’s “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They.” I’m John Wayne.”īrooks then approached “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson, who also said no, before settling on Academy Award-winning actor Gig Young. Wayne likewise loved the script and said he’d be first in line to see it, but declined to participate, saying “This is too dirty. He approached John Wayne, then nearing the end of his epic career. Dailey loved the part, but said his bad eyesight would make it unsafe for him to ride horses.īrooks tried to think of someone else who could credibly play the part of the worn-out gunfighter. Meanwhile, the casting process was not going well for Brooks. Wilder then was offered a part in a film version of Antoine Saint-Exupéry’s classic fable, “The Little Prince.” The next day Brooks took off for Los Angeles to start filming “Blazing Saddles,” and Wilder got back to work on the “Young Frankenstein” script. “Blazing Saddles is not it,” Brooks said. I can do it.”īut Brooks gave him a final “no” and promised they would work together again. Wilder continued to insist he could do it: “I love this guy. I need an old alky, a guy with lines in his face. He liked Dailey’s older leathery face, as well as the fact that Dailey was known as one of Hollywood’s best horsemen.īrooks told Wilder: “You’re too young, you can’t play the Waco Kid. Brooks said his first choice was veteran actor and song-and-dance man Dan Dailey.