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IMDbPro

The Producers

  • 1967
  • PG
  • 1h 28m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
58K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
4,937
531
Lee Meredith, Zero Mostel, and Dick Shawn in The Producers (1967)
Trailer for The Producers: Collectors Edition: Blu-Ray And DVD Combo Pack
Play trailer1:48
5 Videos
86 Photos
ComedyMusic

A stage-play producer devises a plan to make money by producing a sure-fire flop.A stage-play producer devises a plan to make money by producing a sure-fire flop.A stage-play producer devises a plan to make money by producing a sure-fire flop.

  • Director
    • Mel Brooks
  • Writer
    • Mel Brooks
  • Stars
    • Zero Mostel
    • Gene Wilder
    • Dick Shawn
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    7.5/10
    58K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    4,937
    531
    • Director
      • Mel Brooks
    • Writer
      • Mel Brooks
    • Stars
      • Zero Mostel
      • Gene Wilder
      • Dick Shawn
    • 296User reviews
    • 89Critic reviews
    • 96Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Won 1 Oscar
      • 4 wins & 5 nominations total

    Videos5

    The Producers
    Trailer 1:48
    Watch The Producers
    The Producers Scene: That's A Toy?
    Clip 1:33
    Watch The Producers Scene: That's A Toy?
    The Producers Scene: You Found A Flop
    Clip 0:56
    Watch The Producers Scene: You Found A Flop
    The Producers Scene: Theater Explosion (Deleted Scene)
    Clip 1:07
    Watch The Producers Scene: Theater Explosion (Deleted Scene)
    The Producers Scene: I'm In Pain And I'm Wet
    Clip 1:14
    Watch The Producers Scene: I'm In Pain And I'm Wet

    Photos86

    Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers (1967)
    Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers (1967)
    Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, and Zero Mostel in The Producers (1967)
    Gene Wilder, Christopher Hewett, Zero Mostel, and Andréas Voutsinas in The Producers (1967)
    Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers (1967)
    "The Producers" Kenneth Mars, Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel 1968 MGM
    "The Producers" Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel 1968 MGM
    "The Producers" Mel Brooks directing 1968 MGM
    "The Producers" Kenneth Mars & Dir. Mel Brooks 1968 MGM
    "The Producers" Gene Wilder 1968 MGM
    "The Producers" Kenneth Mars, Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel 1968 MGM
    "The Producers" dancers performing for "Springtime for Hitler" 1968 MGM

    Top cast

    Edit
    Zero Mostel
    Zero Mostel
    • Max Bialystock
    Gene Wilder
    Gene Wilder
    • Leo Bloom
    Dick Shawn
    Dick Shawn
    • L.S.D. - Lorenzo St. DuBois
    Kenneth Mars
    Kenneth Mars
    • Franz Liebkind
    Estelle Winwood
    Estelle Winwood
    • Hold Me Touch Me
    Christopher Hewett
    Christopher Hewett
    • Roger De Bris
    Andréas Voutsinas
    Andréas Voutsinas
    • Carmen Ghia
    • (as Andreas Voutsinas)
    Lee Meredith
    Lee Meredith
    • Ulla
    Renée Taylor
    Renée Taylor
    • Eva Braun
    • (as Renee Taylor)
    Michael Davis
    • Production Tenor
    John Zoller
    • Drama Critic
    Madelyn Cates
    • Concierge
    • (as Madlyn Cates)
    Frank Campanella
    Frank Campanella
    • The Bartender
    Arthur Rubin
    • Auditioning Hitler
    Zale Kessler
    • Jason Green
    Bernie Allen
    Bernie Allen
    • Auditioning Hitler
    Rusty Blitz
    • Auditioning Hitler
    Anthony Gardell
    • Auditioning Hitler
    • Director
      • Mel Brooks
    • Writer
      • Mel Brooks
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Mel Brooks cannot read music. "Springtime for Hitler" and "Prisoners of Love" (as were all the songs Brooks writes for his films) were hummed into a tape recorder and transcribed by an expert. When Brooks adapted the movie into a stage musical, he wrote the entire score by himself using the same method.
    • Goofs
      During the time in Liebkind's flat and leaving it Max and Leo are wearing Nazi bandages on the right arm. However the real swastika bandages were worn on the left arm. Since Franz Liebkind was a "true" Nazi, he should have known that.
    • Quotes

      Leo Bloom: I'm hysterical! I'm having hysterics. I'm hysterical. I can't stop when I get like this. I can't stop. I'm hysterical.

      [Max throws a glass of water on him]

      Leo Bloom: I'm wet! I'm wet! I'm hysterical, and I'm wet!

      [Max slaps him]

      Leo Bloom: I'm in pain! And I'm wet! And I'm still hysterical!

    • Crazy credits
      The closing credits show each actor's full name and their picture, but it only says "Zero" for Zero Mostel.
    • Alternate versions
      Some prints eliminate the opening "Embassy Pictures" logo, as well as a few seconds of footage in the bar scene, including the drunk's dialogue "Let's have a toast...to toast! I love toast..." and the beginning of the song "By the Light of the Silvery Moon". Most prints just cut into the scene in the middle of the song verse.
    • Connections
      Featured in The Dick Cavett Show: Robert Altman/Mel Brooks/Peter Bogdanovich/Frank Capra (1972)
    • Soundtracks
      The Producers
      (uncredited)

      John Morris and M. Goode

    User reviews296

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    10/10
    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
    helpful•60
    17
    • lawprof
    • Jun 20, 2004

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • November 10, 1968 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Languages
      • English
      • German
    • Also known as
      • Mel Brooks' The Producers
    • Filming locations
      • Broadway Theatre - 1681 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
    • Production companies
      • Crossbow Productions
      • Springtime Productions
      • U-M Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $941,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $328,673
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $6,091
      • Jun 9, 2002
    • Gross worldwide
      • $375,524
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 28 minutes
    • Sound mix
      • Mono

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