Francesco Paolo LoVecchio, better known as singer Frankie Laine, was born on this day 110 years ago today. He was from the old Italian neighborhood on Chicago’s Near South Side. He sang the theme song for the 1974 Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles; it didn’t chart, but it’s a great song, and might end up being the only part of the movie they can show on TV.
The Sound of One Hand Typing 
Live, love, love this movie! How sad tgat the Ken and Karen’s of this world have taken hold and censored something that shouldn’t be censored. Mel Brooks made fun but not against minorities but actually for them by being that open about it. I love this song which is right up there with some of the classic western songs. Did you know Mel Brooks approached John Wayne to play the Cisco Kid? Wayne declined because of the script hut he told Mel he would be the first in line to see the picture.
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Richard Pryor wrote the movie. That’s what’s so funny about it! All the racist jokes and statements in the movie that have the Kens and Karens clutching their pearls were written by a Black man! That’s what Pryor did, from just about the beginning of his career. You see film of him on Ed Sullivan in the ’60’s; that was his thing! And may God bless him for it…
I heard that about John Wayne. And he probably roared with laughter.
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Super song, John. I always liked Frankie Lane and Mel Brooks
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I wrote about him a while back, and that was the first I knew that he was from the Italian neighborhood in Chicago. I went to high school very close to the U of I Chicago campus, for which Mayor Daley had the old Italian neighborhood torn down….
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Daley was a peach. I lived in the Chicago area two times totaling eight years and never understood him.
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“The policeman is not here to create disorder, the policeman is here to preserve disorder.”
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I love it.
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“…the only part of the movie they can show on tv…” Isn’t that the truth? Mel Brooks was in the right place at the right time for his movies. By ‘right’, I don’t mean culturally or racially acceptable. I mean his movies couldn’t have been made earlier or later than they were. He was sort of an era unto himself.
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This is the funny thing: Richard Pryor wrote the movie.
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