Bad Takes: 50-year old movie classic Blazing Saddles skewers contemporary targets

A half century ago, a low-budget spoof on Hollywood Westerns became a box office smash and left an unexpectedly indelible mark on American cinema and culture. Originally titled Tex X, an homage to human rights leader Malcolm X, the film Blazing Saddles told the tale of a daring sheriff who saved a fictional frontier town named Rock Ridge from greedy railroad profiteers. A well-worn plot, to be sure, except with one twist: the lawman, played by Cleavon Little, was Black.