MEL. BROOKS DOUBLE FEATURE: "THE PRODUCERS" & "BLAZING SADDLES"
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
Mel Brooks directed The Producers movie in 1968, stunning audiences with his audacious musical spoof “Springtime for Hitler.” In 1974, he stunned audiences again, lampooning Westerns by casting African-American actor Cleavon Little as “Black Bart” in Blazing Saddles. TCM presents both films as a deliriously entertaining double feature – and what’s amazing about Mel’s writing and directing here is that both movies are as inventive, and outrageous and politically incorrect, as they were so many decades ago. But if you want to watch two movies that display and lay bare the ignorance of prejudice, it’d be hard to find two better, funnier examples. And give special kudos to Gene Wilder – he not only co-starred in both of these brilliant Brooks comedies, opposite Zero Mostel (pictured with Wilder) in the former and Little in the latter, but also starred in a third: Young Frankenstein, made the same year as Blazing Saddles.