Mel Brooks’ ‘Blazing Saddles’ unequaled in film comedy

BLAZING SADDLES (1974)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

Madeline Kahn spoofs the great Marlene Dietrich, Slim Pickens runs a railroad chain gang, Gene Wilder plays a drunken gunslinger and Cleavon Little stars as Rock Ridge’s new black sheriff.

Together, they make up the cast of the funniest, and one of the most socially conscious, screen comedies: Mel Brooks’ classic “Blazing Saddles.” This is Brooks at his side-splitting best, a movie that has no equals.

Brooks came close with “Young Frankenstein,” his black-and-white parody of the classic “Frankenstein” films. But “Blazing Saddles” is something different – a zany, no-holds-barred, non-stop, laugh-fest masterpiece.

Working from a script by five writers that included Brooks and Richard Pryor, “Blazing Saddles” finds the small Western town of Rock Ridge getting its first black sheriff. Brooks pokes fun at Western film conventions and uses his off-beat, crude humor to criticize racism.

Welcome to Top Five week at Sneak Prevue. Today’s edition: The Top Five Film Comedies.

Nothing can top the disastrous excess of ‘Exorcist 2’

EXORCIST 2: THE HERETIC (1977)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

Between Richard Burton’s bizarre overacting and the incomprehensible and totally preposterous plot, “Exorcist 2: The Heretic” makes you wonder what the film makers were thinking.

Director John Boorman and company faced an uphill battle from the start: They attempted to create a sequel to the most frightening horror film of all time. That they failed is no shock.

What is surprising, however, is the depth of the failure. From the acting to the writing, directing and special effects, this movie is a major, high-profile train wreck.

Boorman frantically tried to salvage the film by re-editing it days after its initial release. But his efforts made a disastrous film worse. “Exorcist 2: The Heretic” is, without a doubt, the single-worst motion picture sequel ever to grace the big screen.

Welcome to Top Five week at Sneak Prevue. Today’s edition: The Top Five Worst Film Sequels.

Bad movies I love: Joe Dante’s hilarious ‘Jaws’ rip-off ‘Piranha’

PIRANHA (1978)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

I loved drive-in theaters and the cheap, trashy films that often played there – usually melodramatic revenge dramas, car-chase thrillers and rip-offs of high-profile, big-budget movies from major studios.

By the mid- to late 1970s, the spate of “Exorcist” clones significantly slowed. In its place came a series of “Jaws” rip-offs that saw fair to middling success from people hungry for the same thrills and scares they experienced when they saw the 1975 Steven Spielberg classic.

“Grizzly” led the way in 1976 with its story of an 18-foot rampaging grizzly bear. The next year saw “Tentacles,” about a killer octopus, and “Tintorera,” about a killer tiger shark. Then, in June 1978, the sub-par sequel “Jaws 2” hit screens.

My favorite is a small film that opened in drive-ins and second-run  houses in August 1978. Joe Dante’s “Piranha” belongs to the class of films that are so pathetically bad, so poorly acted, so horribly directed that they instantly become a classic unequaled in cinema history.

Anthony Hopkins shines in ‘Magic,’ his finest screen role

MAGIC (1978)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

Thirteen years before his Oscar-winning role as Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins gave an even better, more impressive performance headlining one of the best horror thrillers of the 1970s.

Based on the best-seller by William Goldman, “Magic” opened at theaters on Friday, Nov. 8, 1978 – two weeks after John Carpenter’s sleeper hit “Halloween” shocked everyone by raking in millions at the box office.

To this day, I believe “Halloween” was an unintentionally funny, vastly overrated low-budget shocker – one that sadly initiated the mad-slasher genre that saw a series of pointless “Halloween” sequels and the “Friday the 13th” series. “Magic,” however, is totally different.

This is the story of Corky Withers, a man who finds sudden fame as a successful magician; of Peggy Ann Snow, an attractive middle-aged woman afloat in a dying marriage; and of Fats, Corky’s ventriloquist dummy that is slowly taking over his personality.

Overlooked and underrated: Hoffman in ‘Straight Time’

STRAIGHT TIME (1978)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

Of all the films in which Dustin Hoffman has starred, the one that constantly surprises me is the little seen crime drama “Straight Time” from 1978.

Helmed by Ulu Grosbard, a Belgian-born theater and film director, and based on the book “No Beast So Fierce” by ex-convict Edward Bunker, “Straight Time” gives us one of Hoffman’s most controlled, nuanced performances.

The story is simple: Hoffman plays Max Dembo, who at the start of the film is released from prison on parole. He vows to go straight, but finds himself ever-so-slowly unable to cope with his freedom, unable to hold a job and unable to avoid one more robbery.

This is a blistering, fascinating character study. Hoffman goes deep inside Dembo, showing us a quiet range that highlights his character’s confusion and frustration – both from dealing with a power-hungry, despicable parole officer and struggling with the lure of one more score.