Blazing Saddles at 50: Against all odds, Mel Brooks created the wackiest western ever made

FLASHBACKS: The director’s groundbreaking satire of bigotry had a wild journey to the screen, with drugs in the writers’ room and attempts to prohibit almost all of its controversial scenes. Martin Chilton looks back on how the creation, making and legacy of ‘Blazing Saddles’ were as anarchic as the film itself