This movie is peerless (and fearless) in its unapologetic send-up of political INcorrectness — while at the same time serving as an homage to the American western. Forty-plus years later it still makes me howl with scenes of:

• KKK robes with smiley faces
• Mel Brooks — a Jew — as an Indian chief
• A chain gang breaking into a Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You”

To make it all work director Mel Brooks assembled a cast that was as incredible as it was improbable (Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Alex Karras, Dom DeLuise). It’s a tall tale about how the little cowboy town of Rock Ridge was threatened and ultimately saved by the most unlikely of heroes.