| The Producers | |
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Theatrical release poster. |
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| Directed by | Mel Brooks |
| Produced by | Sidney Glazier |
| Written by | Mel Brooks |
| Starring | Zero Mostel Gene Wilder Kenneth Mars and Dick Shawn as L.S.D. |
| Music by | John Morris |
| Cinematography | Joseph Coffey |
| Editing by | Ralph Rosenblum |
| Distributed by | Embassy Pictures |
| Release date(s) | March 18, 1968[1] |
| Running time | 88 minutes[1][2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $947,000[3] |
The Producers is a 1968 American satirical dark comedy cult classic film written and directed by Mel Brooks. The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop. They take more money from investors than they need and plan to abscond to Brazil as soon as the play closes, only to see the plan improbably go awry when the show turns out to be a hit.
The film stars Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, the producer, and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom, the accountant, and features Dick Shawn as L.S.D., the actor who ends up playing the lead in the musical within the movie, and Kenneth Mars as the former Nazi soldier and playwright, Franz Liebkind.
The Producers was the first film directed by Mel Brooks. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay. Decades later, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry and placed 11th on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list. The film was later remade successfully by Brooks as an acclaimed Broadway stage musical which itself was adapted as a film.
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Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is a failed, aging Broadway producer who ekes out a living romancing lascivious wealthy elderly women in exchange for money for his next play. Nebbishy accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) arrives at Bialystock's office to do his books and discovers there is a two thousand dollar overcharge in the accounts of Bialystock's last play, because he raised more money than he needed. Bialystock persuades Bloom to hide the relatively minor fraud; and, while shuffling numbers, Bloom has a revelation—that a producer could make a lot more money with a flop than a hit—a scheme which Bialystock immediately puts into action. They will over-sell shares again, but on a much larger scale and produce a play that will close on opening night. No one audits the books of a play presumed to have lost money, thus avoiding a pay-out and leaving the duo free to flee to Rio de Janeiro with the profits. Leo is afraid such a criminal venture will fail and they will go to prison; but Max eventually convinces him that his drab existence is no better than prison.
After reading many bad plays, the partners find the obvious choice for their scheme: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden. It is "a love letter to Hitler" written in total sincerity by deranged ex-Nazi Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars), whose name is German for "Frank Lovechild"). They persuade him to sign over the stage rights, telling him they want to show the world "the true Hitler, the Hitler with a song in his heart." To guarantee that the show is a flop, they hire Roger De Bris (Christopher Hewett), a director whose plays "close on the first day of rehearsal". The part of Hitler goes to a charismatic but only semi-coherent, flower power hippie named Lorenzo St. DuBois, aka L.S.D. (Dick Shawn), who can barely remember his own name and had mistakenly wandered into their theater during the casting call. After Bialystock sells 25,000 percent of the play to his regular investors (dozens of lustful little old ladies), they are sure they are on their way to Rio.
The result of all of this is a cheerfully upbeat and utterly tasteless musical play purporting to be about the happy home life of a brutal dictator. It opens with a lavish production of the title song, "Springtime For Hitler", which celebrates Nazi Germany crushing Europe ("Springtime for Hitler and Germany/Winter for Poland and France"). Unfortunately for Bialystock and Bloom, their attempt backfires as, after initial dumbfounded disbelief, the audience finds L.S.D.'s beatnik-like portrayal (and misunderstanding of the story) to be hilarious and misinterpret the production as a satire. Springtime For Hitler is declared a smash-hit, which means, of course, the investors will be expecting a larger financial return than can be paid out.
As the stunned partners turn on each other, they are confronted by a gun-wielding Franz Liebkind, who is enraged by L.S.D.'s portrayal of Hitler. He says they have broken the "Siegfried Oath", which they took in a deleted earlier scene. In desperation, the three band together and blow up the theater to end the production. They are injured, arrested, and tried. In spite of Leo's impassioned statement praising Max, the jury finds them "incredibly guilty" and they go to prison. They have apparently not learned their lesson, though, as the film ends with them rehearsing a new Franz Liebkind musical starring their fellow inmates, called "Prisoners of Love". Leo Bloom continues to oversell shares of the play to the other prisoners and even to the warden.
| “ | I was never crazy about Hitler...If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win...That's what they do so well: they seduce people. But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can't win. You show how crazy they are. | ” |
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—Mel Brooks, in an August 2001 interview[4] |
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Mel Brooks wanted to title the film Springtime For Hitler, but Embassy Pictures producer Joseph E. Levine would not let him.
The original screenplay had Franz Liebkind make Max and Leo swear The Siegfried Oath.[5] Accompanied by The Ride of the Valkyries, they promised fealty to Siegfried, Wagner, Nietzsche, Hindenburg, the Graf Spee, the Blue Max, and "Adolf You-Know-Who". The Siegfried Oath was restored in the musical version.[6] In a making-of documentary that accompanied the 2002 DVD release of the film,[5] Brooks says that Dustin Hoffman was originally cast as Liebkind. According to Brooks, late on the night before shooting began, Hoffman begged Brooks to let him out of his commitment to do the role so that he could audition for the starring role in The Graduate. Brooks was aware of the film, which co-starred Brooks' wife, Anne Bancroft, and, skeptical that Hoffman would get the role, agreed to let him audition.
The film was shot at the Chelsea Studios in New York City, where the musical version (2005) was also shot.[7]
Writer-director Mel Brooks is heard briefly in the film, his voice dubbed over a dancer singing, "Don't be stupid, be a smarty/Come and join the Nazi Party", in the song Springtime For Hitler. His version of the line is also dubbed into each performance of the musical, as well as the movie version.
According to Brooks, after the film was completed, Embassy executives refused to release it as being in "bad taste"; however, Peter Sellers saw the film privately and placed an advertisement in Variety in support of the film's wider release.[5][8] Sellers was familiar with the film because, according to Brooks, Sellers had accepted the role of Bloom and then was never heard from again.[5][8] The film premiered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 22, 1967[1] and subsequently had a limited release to only a small number of theaters.
It has been alleged that the film was "banned in Germany".[9] Following the film's lackluster response in the UK, German distributors did decline to distribute it, but their lack of interest did not technically constitute a ban.
In Sweden, however, the title literally translates as "Springtime For Hitler". As a result of its success, all but two of Mel Brooks movies in Swedish have been given similar titles: "Springtime For Mother-In-Law" (The Twelve Chairs); "Springtime For The Sheriff" (Blazing Saddles); "Springtime For Frankenstein" (Young Frankenstein); "Springtime For The Silent Movies" (Silent Movie); "Springtime For The Lunatics" (High Anxiety); "Springtime For World History" (History of the World, Part I); "Springtime For Space" (Space Balls); and "Springtime For The Slum" (Life Stinks).[10]
When it was first released, the film received a mixed response and garnered exceptionally harsh reviews from New York critics— Stanley Kauffmann ("the film bloats into sogginess", The New Republic); Pauline Kael ("amateurishly crude", The New Yorker); and Andrew Sarris—partly because of its directorial style and broad ethnic humor.[11] Negative reviewers noted the bad taste and insensitivity of devising a broad comedy about two Jews conspiring to cheat theatrical investors by devising a designed-to-fail singing, dancing, tasteless Broadway musical show about Hitler, a mere 23 years after the end of World War II.[12] Renata Adler wrote that it was a "violently mixed bag. Some of it is shoddy and gross and cruel; the rest is funny in an entirely unexpected way. It has the episodic, revue quality of so much contemporary comedy—not building laughter, but stringing it together skit after skit, some vile, some boffo. It is less delicate than Lenny Bruce, less funny than Doctor Strangelove, but much funnier than The Loved One or What's New Pussycat? According to her, Mostel is "overacting grotesquely" while co-star Wilder is "wonderful" playing his part "as though he were Dustin Hoffman being played by Danny Kaye."[2]
Others considered the film to be a great success. Time Magazine's reviewers wrote, "...hilariously funny... Unfortunately, the film is burdened with the kind of plot that demands resolution...[and] ends in a whimper of sentimentality... The movie is disjointed and inconsistent..."[13] and "... a wildly funny joy ride ...",[14] "...despite its bad moments, is some of the funniest American cinema comedy in years."[15] The film industry trade paper Variety magazine wrote, "The film is unmatched in the scenes featuring Mostel and Wilder alone together, and several episodes with other actors are truly rare."[16] Over the years, the film has gained in stature, garnering a 93% certified fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert later claimed that "this is one of the funniest movies ever made."[17] In his review decades later,[18] Ebert wrote,
"I remember finding myself in an elevator with Brooks and his wife, actress Anne Bancroft, in New York City a few months after The Producers was released. A woman got onto the elevator, recognized him and said, 'I have to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar.' Brooks smiled benevolently. 'Lady,' he said, 'it rose below vulgarity.'
Reviews in Britain were positive to very positive.[12]
In 1968, The Producers won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay—Written Directly for the Screen, and Gene Wilder was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
In 1969, The Producers won a Writers Guild of America, East Best Original Screenplay award.
In 1996, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
American Film Institute recognition
In 2002 The Producers was re-released in three theaters by Rialto Pictures and earned $111,866[19][20] at the box office. As of 2007, the film continues to be distributed to art-film and repertory cinemas by Rialto.
Brooks has adapted the story twice more, a Broadway musical (The Producers, 2001) and a film based on the musical (The Producers, 2005).
The Producers (1968) is currently available on DVD, released by MGM.
At its theatrical release in Sweden, the film was given the Swedish title Producenterna (The Producers), but it was not a success then. After it was re-released under the title Det våras för Hitler (Springtime for Hitler), it scored with the Swedish audience.[21]
A showman over-selling shares in a deliberate flop, to be able to pocket the excess investment, was the basis for the RKO Radio feature film New Faces of 1937. The film starred comedian Milton Berle, dancer Ann Miller, and singer Harriet Hilliard (later Harriet Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet). This film itself was based on an earlier play, Shoestring.
An obscure murder mystery film, The Falcon in Hollywood (1944), had a much darker take with a scheming movie producer resorting to sabotage and murder when the surprisingly good performance of the inexperienced director and cast threatened to sink his investment scam.
Similarly, in the 1943 novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Howard Roark is chosen to design a resort called Monodnack Valley and it is subsequently revealed that the investors had sold 200% of the shares, convinced that the project would be a flop and that they had chosen Howard Roark as the worst possible person for the job.
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