Episode 6.15 The French Mistake
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I realized after i finished editing this one that I didn’t even talk about the title of this one. It’s a reference to a very specific fourth wall break in cinema history. From my second favorite movie released the year I was born, Blazing Saddles. I’ll link to a post with the video clip from the end of the film below though.
For anyone who doesn’t know the film though, it’s a western. It’s a dang silly Mel Brooks western, too, with a lot of social commentary (heavily rooted in when it was made… 1974…). And at the end of the movie, at the climax of action, we… cut to an exterior shot of a film studio, and then move into a studio where they’re shooting a big old-timey song and dance number (think Fred Astaire’s backup dancers sort of deal), dozens of flamboyant men in tuxedos singing about “doing the French Mistake” when a director calls cut because someone was out of step. The director himself them proceeds to show the dancers how simple it is (and the flamboyant director refers to the dancers as “Sissy Marys” and “faggots” in his grumpy orders… but then proceeds to throw out his hands, stick out his tush, hands on his hips, give them a push… finishing by accidentally kneeling down in a fountain…
then as the dancers try again from the top, they’ve just begun when… the cast of Blazing Saddles literally comes crashing *through the wall*. Just knock out a whole wall of their set and keep right on fighting. The director desperately tries to call cut, but one of the cowboy characters runs up to him and says nah I’m working for Mel Brooks! like that’s supposed to give him permission to run roughshod over another film, too.
Which… seems plausible, because one of the top-hatted dancers likes the idea of this, yells COME ON, GIRLS to the other (again, all male) dancers, and run right into the cowboy brawl. And it all turns irrevocably gay. All the cowboys paired up with dancers and making love not war.
So I needed to at least make note of that somewhere. :’D
LINKS!
The Blazing Saddles reference post, with video
s15 meta rewatch notes (less than 300 words… a very succinct post)
a one minute long promo video that is entirely worth your time to watch… go do that right this second before you hit play on the podcast… no really please do
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