@ucme mentioned Blazing Saddles. This great comedy deserves more than a mere mention. It is full of unforgettably funny scenes. It was not only ahead of its own time, it is evidently ahead of our time as well. Mel Brooks says that the studio heads would never let most of the scenes through today, especially the Work Gang/Camp Town Ladies scene at the beginning of the film. The cowboy in the red shirt, Burt Gilliam, was an LA fireman at the time with only a bit of Little Theater behind him. He later enjoyed a busy and lucrative career as a character actor, mostly in westerns. Slim Pickens had problems with the script because of the racist content. Richard Pryor wrote the Camp Town Ladies scene and talked Pickens down.
In this scene with Harvey Korman, Mel Brooks, and Robyn Hilton as Miss Stein. Korman later said that they had run through it straight per script once, then ad libbed once, then ad libbed for the print. What we saw in the theaters, the harumphing thing, “Work, work, work, work, hiya boys!” and Korman helping Brooks replace the pen, were a couple of old pros totally ad libbing their way through this scene.
Here’s incredible Madeleine Kahn doing Marlene Dietrich as Lillie von Shtupp in a scene called, It’s twooo! IT’S TWOOO!!!. Korman nearly loses his hand playing the letch at the door. Kahn does a great mimic of classic early Dietrich in the dance number, “I’m Tired.”
There is the hilarious scene in the gov’s office where Korman convinces Brooks to appoint Cleavon Little as sheriff, but I can’t find it. There is the one where Igor, the medieval hangman, apologetically explains from the hanging platform that he is “solidly booked through to next Thursday” then pulls the lever and hangs a bank robber and the horse he rode in on. There’s the Fourth Wall scenes. This 40 year old film is incredible.
Cleavon Little, the new black sheriff, dressed head to toe in Gucci, is crossing the desert on his way to town and just by chance runs into Count Basie and his Orchestra. This scene isn’t necessarily funny, but it is beautiful and it’s Brooks’ great homage to one of the finest entertainers of his generation.