...Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles (1974)
Madeline Kahn plays Lily von Shtupp, the seductive, floozy blonde dancer/entertainer in Mel Brooks' parody of the rootin' tootin' old west in America.
Kahn's Lily walks into the film nearly half-way, and is introduced to act as a briefly central feminine standpoint when she is asked to snare the town's (black) sheriff into a trap of lusty passion and to generally play a caricatured ditz.
Her introduction also includes her musical number, "I'm Tired" which she performs in a saloon to many horny cowboys-- a hilarious bit where she tells of the whole game, and does a little interacting with an audience member ("Is that a ten gallon hat or are you just enjoying the show?"). The scene displays Kahn's impressive comic physicality and dexterity for words/dialogue, especially when speaking in her catchy German accent.
After her show-stopping number, the film lazily uses Kahn's Lily as a shallow plot device when having her seduce the sheriff and then to keep him in her adoring trap of erotic love.
Now there's something unusual happening here; Kahn's performance -- which is widely considered among cinephiles as both equally memorable and hilarious -- just seems to bubble for a bit then fizz down flat. It's much more the film's fault than the actress', but the character and the performance simply end up becoming banal and stale pretty quickly. My enthusiasm upon seeing Kahn's work fell flat when the movie hardly uses a character with potential but doesn't even seize the time that we have to watch her do her thing. Kahn's tries her damn hardest to inject some comic energy and zest, but she's handed a caricature, not a character.
Madeline Kahn's real memorable turn came a year earlier with her shaded, nuanced, and humane work in Paper Moon that actually seems to be less admired than her forgettable cartoon of Lily von Shtupp. The actress is a trouper, but when she's stuck in a dead end from the get-go, she's doomed.
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