Rate Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)

Have watched it many times and always enjoy it.

I find it infinitely more watchable that Blazing Saddles (which I have tried and failed to like).
It doesn't rely on juvenile fart jokes, double entendres and generally bawdy-ness for its humor.

Companion piece to Support Your Local Gunfighter.
Also superior to Saddles. (imo)

I normally shy away from "ratings" per se; I honestly don't know how to quantify relative levels of appreciation for films within a given "oeuvre" (such as Hitchcock or James Bond) or genre (like musicals or, in this case, westerns). But on its own, I give Support Your Local Sheriff a solid "10." It's an innocent, just-for-fun movie that accomplishes everything it sets out to do with ample measures of wit and style, and does so free of missteps. I can't think of anything about it that doesn't work or isn't just right: whether trading in sly subtlety or outright slapstick, it's neither overdone nor underdone.

Although a comedy western, I don't know that I'd necessarily classify it as "spoof" in the way of Blazing Saddles (I've heard of the Trinity films but never seen one, so can't comment). What Mel Brooks's film does that SYLS doesn't is step out of character, deliberately incorporating out-of-context references purely for the sake of laughs. That's all well and good, and typical of Brooks's sense of humor, but it ultimately renders the result uneven and inconsistent, more resembling hit-or-miss sketch comedy.

Those considerations are admittedly matters of personal taste. There's nothing wrong with an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach if that's what floats a viewer's boat. For me, SYLS holds together better than BS, finding its humor within the conventions of the form, merely skewing its point of view rather than reaching beyond it for gags, thereby maintaining integrity by remaining true to itself. That's a heavier lift, and therefore funnier (again, personal taste) when successful. It's for similar reasons that I judge Brooks's The Twelve Chairs a far more effective film than either BS or even Young Frankenstein, both of which choose to poke fun at themselves in favor of being fun by themselves, if you know what I mean. 

But then, that's one of the mysteries of comedy: it's so difficult to explain (as is why one type works for some viewers while another works for others).          

        

7/10