"Blazing Saddles" on This Day in History

 
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This day in history: Mel Brooks' classic movie "Blazing Saddles" opened in movie theaters on this day in 1974. Blazing Saddles is one of the movies from the past that could not be made today, thanks to its "very particular kind of vulgarity and offensiveness. It is incredibly, hedonistically, politically incorrect vulgarity and offensiveness. Plenty of modern films have included some amount of political incorrectness, but Blazing Saddles leaves them all in the dust in it’s glorious disregard for PC culture." Source

Mel Brooks opined about today's woke culture: "we have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy. It's okay not to hurt feelings of various tribes and groups. However, it's not good for comedy. Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering into the king's ear, always telling the truth about human behavior."

Ironically, despite efforts to cancel Blazing Saddles, it is also one the most anti-white movies ever made.

Other movies that could not be made today are: 

"Not Without My Daughter" (would be considered Islamophobic)...the same thing True Lies.

Animal House (See https://www.billoreilly.com/b/Animal-House-Couldnt-be-Made-Today/-53125741398281390.html)

Gone With The Wind and Song of the South and The Birth of a Nation (Gone With The Wind was inexplicably banned in the Soviet Union)

Tropic Thunder (or any movie with white characters in Black Face...like Soul Man and Trading Places)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Indians would be too offended)

The Godfather ("The Italian-American Civil Rights League (which was supposedly run by the Mafia) mounted protests throughout New York City claiming the film was an insult against the Italian-American community.") Source

Pretty Woman and Sixteen Candles (Source)

Big (starring Tom Hanks). Source

The Jerk (1979) “I was born a poor black child” 

Woody Allen's Manhattan (or any other movie featuring under-age sex, such as Lolita)

Also, add Airplane! (1980), Caddyshack (1980), Porky’s (1981), Stripes (1981), 48 Hrs. (1982), Partners (1982), Tootsie (1982), The Toy (1982), Mr. Mom (1983), Gremlins (1984), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Sixteen Candles (1984), Teen Wolf (1985) etc. Source 

“The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Hedy Lamarr, on This Day in History

 

This day in history: Austrian-born American film actress and inventor, Hedy Lamarr was born on this day in 1914. She was at one time called “the most beautiful woman in the world...Lamarr made her name as a sex object in movies like the scandalous Ecstasy. She rubbed shoulders with the likes of Adolf Hitler and Mussolini at parties thrown by her first husband, a Viennese arms merchant who forced her to leave the movie business. But Lamarr was unhappy in her marriage and disgusted by her husband’s 'shady business dealings with Nazi industrialists,' writes Jennifer Ouellette for Scientific American, so she escaped Austria for Paris, London and eventually the United States in the late 1930s."~Erin Blakemore

"Most people remember actress Hedy Lamarr for her beauty and brains. She co-invented a device that manipulated radio frequencies, making it harder for wartime enemies to jam radio-controlled torpedoes. Although she patented the device in August of 1942, hoping that the U.S. would use it to fight the Nazis, it was never used. Decades later, people realized that modern wireless technology relied on the ideas in her patent. But besides inventing an antecedent to Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth, Lamarr also invented an effervescent tablet that transformed flat water into a carbonated drink. Although the tablet worked—dissolving the tablet in the water did create fizz—the product didn’t taste good and was too similar to Alka-Seltzer. Not every invention can pave the way for Wi-Fi."~Suzanne Raga

Her wartime invention was eventually used in 1962 (at the time of the Cuban missile crisis) on Navy ships.

Her later years were of a different sort. She was arrested twice for shoplifting. Once in Los Angeles and once in Florida (she stole laxatives and eye drops). She would not be the only celebrity who got caught shoplifting. Others were Lindsay Lohan, Winona Ryder, Farrah Fawcett, Britney Spears and Amanda Bynes

In 1974, she filed a $10 million lawsuit against Warner Brothers, claiming that the running parody of her name ("Hedley Lamarr") in the Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles infringed her right to privacy. The studio settled out of court for an undisclosed amount and issued an apology to Lamarr for "almost using her name". Brooks said that Lamarr "never got the joke".

Today is also Inventors' Day in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Gail Borden, who invented condensed milk was born on this day in 1801.

Watch: The Strange Woman (1946)