The Producers (1968)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Mel Brooks

Writer:

Mel Brooks (written by)

Release Date:

10 November 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Hollywood Never Faced a Zanier Zero Hour!

Plot:

Producers Max Bialystock (Mostel) and Leo Bloom (Wilder) make money by producing a sure-fire flop.

Plot Keywords:

Hitler | Theatrical Producer | Accountant | Empire State Building New York City | Hot Dog Stand

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Zero Mostel	...	Max Bialystock (as Zero)
Gene Wilder	...	Leo Bloom
Dick Shawn	...	'L.S.D.' - Lorenzo St. DuBois
Kenneth Mars	...	Franz Liebkind
Lee Meredith	...	Ulla
Christopher Hewett	...	Roger De Bris
Andréas Voutsinas	...	Carmen Ghia (as Andreas Voutsinas)
Estelle Winwood	...	'Hold Me Touch Me'
Renée Taylor	...	Eva Braun (as Renee Taylor)
David Patch	...	Goebbels
William Hickey	...	The Drunk (as Bill Hickey)
Barney Martin	...	Göring
Shimen Ruskin	...	The Landlord
Frank Campanella	...	The Bartender
Josip Elic	...	Violinist

Also Known As:

Springtime for Hitler (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Pathécolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:K-12 | South Korea:15 | West Germany:12 (nf) | Brazil:16 | Netherlands:6 | Argentina:13 | Australia:G (DVD rating) | Australia:PG (original rating) | Canada:14A | France:U | Ireland:G | New Zealand:PG | Norway:12 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Broadway Theatre - 1681 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Crossbow Productions

Trivia:

Mel Brooks worked on two real-life Broadway musical flops. He did a rewrite on the failed musical "Shinbone Alley" (1957), and wrote the libretto for "All American", which starred Ray Bolger and ran for 80 performances in 1962.

Goofs:

Continuity: While playing the kitty game with the lady in blue, Max sits on the couch. Between shots, his position changes; he is first to the right and then to the left.

Quotes:

Lady: [during the Springtime for Hitler performance] Will you please, shut up!
Franz Liebkind: You shut up! You are the audience! I am the author! I OUTRANK you!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Wordplay (2006)

Soundtrack:

LOVE POWER

A Milestone in Film-making

The DVD release of "The Producers" sends me every viewing back to 1968 when I first saw this brilliant, barrier-smashing comedy. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder were the perfect pair to bring to life the adventures of a Broadway faded impresario, now a con man, and his neurotic, hyper, accountant accomplice.

Together they fleece old ladies, something Mostel's Max Bialystock was doing before the auditor, Max Bloom, came by to check the books. Mostel's seduction of the old, the awful and the ugly has no equal in movie physical comedy.

The scheme: put on the worst flop imaginable and when it closes virtually after opening night the two scammers snare riches: the investments they don't have to return. But if the show is a hit...

The producers' vehicle, "Springtime for Hitler," both brought audiences to a new level of appreciation for the malleable, creative power of film and...it made some viewers genuinely nervous, even upset.

Following Steve Allen's observation that a formula for comedy based on history is Tragedy+Time, director Mel Brooks brought to the screen, less than a quarter century after World War II ended, Dick Shawn as a campy fuehrer surrounded by the Nazi counterpart of the Rockettes. And Max and Leo are clearly Jewish in character if not so openly identified.

Kenneth Mars grabs laughs as the author of "Springtime for Hitler," an unreconstructed, Hitler-adoring flake who raises pigeons on the roof of a Manhattan tenement while accoutered in the odd leftovers of Wehrmacht uniforms.

When I fitted in seeing "The Producers" in its opening week I sat in the middle of an audience that was, to a certain extent, as befuddled as the film's playgoers watching the first part of the intended-to-outrage musical comedy about the Third Reich. Not only were SS uniforms, swastikas and photos of Hitler on the "stage" but the movie theater audience also digested, perhaps for the first time, a send-up of an uproarious gay couple, two real queens. One is effeminate to the core, the other is a cross-dresser (and a faultlessly garish one at that). This kind of stuff hadn't been done before in a Hollywood flick.

1968's audience had many who well-remembered World War II and some had fought in the conflict. I knew people who admitted feeling that the horrific global battle against Hitler had been trivialized by Brooks and his extroverted cast - until they could no longer hold back guffaws that segued rapidly into uncontrolled laughter.

That "The Producers" is also now a runaway Broadway hit is no surprise and I'd love to see a DVD release with Lane and Broderick. However fine they would be, it's the original that broke barriers.

The DVD has a number of worthwhile features including a fascinating "Making of..." segment. Peter Seller's short, famous encomium is read and there are the usual other additions. An outtake presenting an alternative blow-up of the "Springtime for Hitler" theater is interesting, largely because it shows how perceptive Brooks was in scrapping it for the shorter scene actually used.

"The Producers" is, in some ways, a subversive movie. Without stridently proclaiming a new aesthetic, it is exactly that and so it's a timeless classic. This is not satire about Nazism, Hitler and the Third Reich. It's treating as suitable material for slapstick and quick gags the detritus of an evil time.

But it's also a bit dated, no subject is taboo today for comedic treatment, and many who see it for the first time (as my teenage son did tonight) will enjoy the movie without getting the full impact of its assault on conventionality.

Is there any historical topic that will not, in the passage of time, be employed for pure comedy? Is it possible that the next generation will laugh at a comedy parodying Auschwitz? I hope not but I also can't be sure.

Many years ago I refused to watch "Hogan's Heroes" on TV because I personally knew former U.S. POWs. But that show, with Werner Klemperer as Colonel Klink, was very popular. "Hogan's Heroes" was to TV what "The Producers" was, and is, to film. And both made a mark that will be emulated as future generations go beyond satire to humorous treatment of matters most today consider beyond the pale of acceptability as a vehicle for laughs.

10/10