Plot
Theatrical producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) was once the toast of Broadway. Now he lives in his seedy office, cadging cash contributions from wealthy old ladies in exchange for sexual favors. Even worse, he's reduced to wearing a cardboard belt. Max's new accountant, Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), the soul of honesty, suggests that Max produce a hit to try to recoup his losses, but Max knows that it's too late for that. Offhandedly, Leo muses that, if Max found investors for a flop, he could legally keep all the extra money. Suddenly, Max's eyes light up -- and in that moment, Leo Bloom is gloriously corruptible. "I want everything I've ever seen in the movies!" cries Leo as Max embraces him. Together, Max and Leo conspire to select the worst play, the worst playwright, the worst director, and the worst actor to collaborate on their guaranteed flop. That play is Springtime for Hitler, "a delightful romp...with Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun." The playwright is Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars), an unreconstructed Nazi who, in drunken delirium, insists that Hitler was a better painter than Churchill -- "He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon, two coats!" The director is pompous transvestite Roger De Bris (Christopher Hewett), who is preparing to go to a costume party garbed as Marie Antoinette when Max and Leo come calling ("Max, Max, he's wearing a dress"). And the star, selected after extensive auditions, is hippie-freak Lorenzo St. DuBois (Dick Shawn) -- "L.S.D." for short.At the end of several weeks, Max has sold 25,000 percent of the show; and, as a finishing touch, Max bribes the opening-night critics for a favorable review, knowing full well that such a gesture is the kiss of death. The curtains part, and Springtime for Hitler opens with perhaps the most tasteless production number in the history of films. At the end of this extravaganza, the audience sits in dumbfounded silence. Gleefully, Max and Leo repair to a corner bar to celebrate their failure. But then.... The first directorial effort of Mel Brooks, The Producers didn't do so well on its first release, but since that time it has taken its place as one of the all-time great movie comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Review
The Producers received two Oscar nominations: one went to Gene Wilder for Best Supporting Actor and the second went to Mel Brooks, who won for Best Original Screenplay in his hilarious feature-film debut. With an opening number that ranks among comic cinema's greatest, and boasting zesty tongue-in-cheek performances by Zero Mostel, Wilder, and Dick Shawn, The Producers is a delightful parody of the old Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney "let's put on a show in the old barn" comedies. The film also is a not-so-subtly veiled assault on the dubious ethics at work in the business side of the Hollywood movie industry. It's filled with some of the funniest dialogue in the entire Mel Brooks' canon, combined with some of the most outrageous musical numbers -- made all the more effective due to their compositional authenticity -- in film history, including the immortal production of "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva." Who else but Mel Brooks would have the audacity to turn Hitler into the object of his comedy? The movie does not depend upon the rapid anarchic pacing of a Marx Brothers' film to grab the audience. Brooks almost purposefully slows the story down so we can enjoy the comic repartee between the wonderfully cast Mostel and Wilder. The Producers is one of those rare comedies that actually manages to be greater than the sum of its many very funny comedic parts. ~ Dan Jardine, RoviCast
- Zero Mostel - Max Bialystock
- Gene Wilder - Leo Bloom
- Kenneth Mars - Franz Liebkind
- Estelle Winwood - Old Lady
- Renée Taylor - Eva Braun
Credit
Charles Rosen - Art Director, Alfa-Betty Olsen - Casting, Alan Johnson - Choreography, Gene Coffin - Costume Designer, Mel Brooks - Director, Ralph Rosenblum - Editor, John Morris - Composer (Music Score), John Morris - Musical Direction/Supervision, Brian Morris - Musical Direction/Supervision, Irving Buchman - Makeup, Joseph Coffey - Cinematographer, Sidney Glazier - Producer, Jack Grossberg - Producer, James Dalton - Set Designer, Mel Brooks - Screenwriter| The Prodigy: World's On Fire (2011 Film), The Prodigy: Their Law: Singles 1990-2005 (Film) | |
| The Producers (2005 Film), The Profane Comedy (1969 Film) |
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