Blazing Saddles
dir. Mel Brooks (1974)
Brooks crafts a comedy layered with tasteless caricatures; over-the-top expectation gags; cringingly, affectedly b-grade acting (Gene Wilder proving the exception); brash, almost surreal anachronisms; and flights of lunacy that blast beyond the fourth wall. Uproarious in parts, baffling and indefensible in others.