I couldn’t find the older Blazing Saddles thread, alas. Anyway, I had an epiphany today that I want to share and I’m not sure if I’ve been terrible naive. I was thinking about the “French Mistake” choreography, and suddenly realized what the French mistake is-- stupid, because I think I’ve even heard the term before in other contexts. Oh well. Am I the only one that this wasn’t obvious to?
Still haven’t figured out, “I’m not from HAVANA!”
Hee hee. Swell film.
All I know is that “Blazing Saddles” is on TV right now, and in the first five minutes they deleted they broadcast “Kansas City Horses” rather than what it was supposed to be, and the N-word is gone altogether. Without such words, the film does not exist at all. Damn political correctness.
(No, I don’t condone such language, but this film might as well not exist without it.)
Ah yes, and Gene Wilder’s “Little bastard shot me in the ass” became “Little punk shot me in the you know.” My God, why bother airing a movie?
Back to the original “French mistake” question, all I can remember about that scene is Dom’s funny intro. I’m sure that will be cut out as well, but I’ll watch to see if I can help with the question. Will it become, “Five, six, seven, eight, watch me, FELLOWS!”? Ugh.
A local station cut out the farting noises from the campfire scene. By the time they were done with the movie it was a drama.
Not that I approve, but the one half-way inventive “cover” I saw once was handled this way:
In the “The Sheriff is a nigger” “He said, ‘The Sheriff is near,’” scene, where the old coot is acting as lookout as the new Sheriff approaches, a church bell peels each time he says “nigger.” Still kept some of the humor.
But, really, why mess with Brooks’ genius?
Now, how 'bout a Blazing Saddles musical on Broadway, Mel? Young Frankenstein?
The church bells thing was the original joke, I believe, not a cover-up. At least, it’s on my uncensored tape. After all, the church bells were why they couldn’t hear the old coot in the first place.
The funniest bit of censorship from the movie came when they shortened Lily von Stupp’s last name to St–.
Of course, this was before I found a Yiddish dictionary and learned what her last name really meant!
well,pesch, what does it mean?
I have two possible interpretations of this one:
(1) Havana was one of the world’s great “Sin Cities,” and remained so even after the Communists took over Cuba in the '50s. Soviet subs often stopped there to revive the morale of their crewmen.
(2) Cuba is famous for its cigars. Could be Fraulien von Shtupp wanted to smoke Sheriff Bart.
And I concur with BayleDomon’s assessment that the churchbell gag is the original.
“Zeit nicht meshuggah!”
To stupp means to screw someone. It is all clear now, huh?
The most broadcast version is the one with the farting noises removed, Lily’s name shortned, and someadded scenes. The one with the N-word removed must be pretty recent. I’m not sure about what “The French Mistake” refers to. I’d like to know the origin of the melody. My siblings all went to a high school which used the same melody for the school song! I’d post the words if I could remember 'em.
Just remembered, I believe the edited version is “sissies.”
Unless I’m terribly mistaken, what they were doing was the French Mistique.
In the mid-eighties, we recorded this film off of television (with our BetaMax) when CBS showed it. They did not shy from leaving in the words nigger' or faggot.’ We’ve changed a lot, it seems. I’m not convinced it’s for the better, though. This was certainly not a racist movie. It made fun of racism. But we don’t expect people to see beyond the use of a few forbidden words, and in turn people behave as they are expected to behave. Yay, democracy.
JohnnyAngel wrote:
Sorry kid, but you are in fact mistaken. Check the credits – the song is “The French Mistake.”
Mr. Scribe,
That suggestion about a musical version of this film is dead on.
Who could pull it off?