The Producers (1967)

I initially had low expectations for this movie, having not been wowed by the other Mel Brooks films that I'd seen up to that time. This one, however, did live up to Brooks's reputation as a comedy legend.

The cast of characters and the actors portraying them are quite distinctive and memorable. Zero is pitch-perfect as the mildly devious Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder is ideal as his straight man sidekick, Leo Bloom. The supporting cast is exceptional as well, with memorable performances from Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn & Christopher Hewett.

The script isn't filled with meaningless gags but rather with comedy that's built upon characterization and plot. Sure, some of the comedy may be dated (particularly LSD's mannerisms) but it's all entertaining nonetheless. I really enjoyed the plot, particularly the ending.

If I had one complaint it would be that the comparatively small amount of music left me wishing for more. The production's main theme alone is worth the price of admission.

I haven't seen the recent remake but it would have to be awfully good to be an improvement on this. Stick to the original and you won't be disappointed.

Fmovies: This is a classic film with wonderful performances all around (although I didn't take to Dick Shawn's as much as the others). Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder were perfect casting as was Christopher Hewitt (later to be known as TV's "Mr. Belvedere"). What's even more impressive are the various elements of truth that are beneath the histerical if not obsurbed storyline. The current Broadway hit doesn't compete with this film. The performances are good on stage but not as wonderful as here. Due to long term business problems this film wasn't released for home video and cable until much later then it should have been. Outright broad comedy and silliness belong in our daily lives and this film offers them very well. EVERYONE should see this film!

This is a marvellous piece - a combination of utter farce, black humour, Jewish schtick and high camp, "The Producers" remains a truly wonderful film.

From the opening sequences, where Theatre agent Max is a despairing old fool trying to avoid tax, through the "little old lady seduction" scenes, to the gorgeous rooftop scene where a mad German pigeon fancier tries to remain within the bounds of sanity and fails, via the meeting with "top" Hollywood director Roger" we're not alone" de Bris, the film traces the hapless and eponymous producers who devise a foolproof scheme to make money out of a flop. They employ a Nazi writer to script the musical "Springtime for Hitler", which is guaranteed to be a flopperoony. Of course, they manage to totally miss the mood of the day and the projected flop is a huge hit - whereupon they have to pay back the 16,000 percent of the cost that they acquired....

Wild, manic, joyous and deeply perceptive, this is Mel Brooks at his finest - Jewish gags abound, but never alienate, accountants get the mickey taken (cheers all round!) and the final production - well, if you haven't seen this film, where have you been living? One of the greats.

The Producers fmovies. In 21st Century America, the one feature of The Producers that astounds even today is the boisterous, exaggerated, confrontational impulsiveness of its two lead performances. But in 1968, the film's content was like a suicide bombing of the audience's idea of good manners. There's such greed in its heroes, such merry deceit, such eagerness to concede every ethic, that the 1968 audience just had to surrender, stick with it. How did Brooks get away with that? By proving the dishonorable struggle of both lead characters at the start, by casting them with actors you couldn't help liking. Mostel's Max Bialystock is a man whose yearnings are so measureless they exonerate his voracity. There's a scene where he rubs his grubby office window with coffee, peeps through the dirt, sees a white Rolls-Royce and shouts, "That's it, baby! When you've got it, flaunt it!" You can drink a tall glass of his gluttonous self-indulgence. "Look at me now! I'm wearing a cardboard belt!" It's characteristic of this movie that after he says the line, he rips off the belt, tears it to smithereens.

Mostel, a distinguished thespian, blacklist foil, and academic, here gives a tour de force of low comedy. Regardless of a comb-over that starts just above his clavicle, he propels buoyant egotism, spitting on his hand to slick back his hair before an elderly female investor enters for her weekly frolic. What Mostel propels in particular is unreserved self-assurance. He never has doubts. Maybe he never thinks at all, just simply carries on out of evolutionary necessity.

Wilder was a fresh mug in 1968, familiarized to audiences with a significant supporting role in Bonnie and Clyde a year before, also as a rather hysterical character. His performance in The Producers is a tinge short of cardiac arrest. On the floor with Mostel over him, he shrieks, "Don't jump! Don't jump!" Mostel begins to leap in a flurry. "I'm hysterical! I'm hysterical!" Mostel pours a glass of water and chucks it in his face. Wilder serves a perfect line: "I'm wet! I'm hysterical, and I'm wet! I'm in pain, and I'm wet, and I'm still hysterical!" Gene and Zero reel on the floor so violently we expect them to chew on one another. Mostel's so overexcited and feral, Wilder so flustered and frantic, you marvel that slobber didn't get on the camera lens. The entire movie's toned on that plane of turbulent anxiety. One of the delights of watching it is to see how the actors are able to manage timing and distinctions even while shrieking. Timing is in the hands of actors, but without scripts, there would be loads of tedious improvisation. Good timing in the written words is the gateway to good timing on screen. I'm sure we'd be surprised at how snappish the dialogue seems on the page. But Brooks, a veteran nightclub act himself, leaves space for delivery while simultaneously working economically with form. Characters repeat the last thing another character said to extend the laugh. Characteristic of Brooks, that's often what causes the laugh. Language is ecstasy to him.

Kenneth Mars is a militant live-action cartoon, up on the roof with his pigeons, singing Nazi songs, later commanding an audience member to stop laughing because "I am the author! I outrank you!" Brooks includes gay jokes, with the ostentatious couple of Broadway director Roger De Bris and his right-hand Carmen Giya. At one point Max, Leo and Carmen crow

I know more people who quote lines from THE PRODUCERS than from Shakespeare; make of that what you will! :-) That said, people seem to either love it or hate it, but most folks I know agree this nutzoid farce has, to quote groovy LSD (delightful Dick Shawn), "Love Power!" Writer/director Mel Brooks' insanely zany yet strangely sweet tale of down-on-his-luck Broadway producer Max Bialystock (the great Zero Mostel, who should have been nominated for an Oscar himself) who uses his powers of persuasion (and wheedling, and bellowing, and conning :-) to convince meek accountant Leo Bloom (justifiably Oscar-nominated Gene Wilder) to help him make a surefire Broadway flop that, if their nutty book-cooking scheme works, will land them in Rio -- or, if it doesn't work, Sing Sing. This screamingly funny, no-holds-barred comedy won Mel Brooks an Oscar for Best Screenplay and put the former YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS writer on the map as a filmmaker. Anyone trying to make a comedy depending on controversy and questionable taste for its laughs should watch THE PRODUCERS first and see how a master does it! For that matter, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder ought to watch it again themselves; after the duds they were churning out for a while there, maybe they need a refresher course in how to be funny. (Hell, it might be as simple as them teaming up again; Wilder seemed able to temper Brooks's mania for poo-poo humor and Brooks seemed able to help Wilder to better balance out his trademark blend of shrill hysteria and sweetness.) Much as my family and I also loved the Broadway and film editions of the musical version co-written by Brooks and Thomas Meehan and starring the incomparable Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (even though I felt that Broderick wasn't quite as good as Leo Bloom as Lane was as Max Bialystock. That said, together they have great buddy chemistry), the original is still the champ.

THE PRODUCERS might just be the funniest film ever made. It stars Zero Mostel, as a bankrupt Broadway producer, and Gene Wilder, as his emotionally-retarded accountant. Together, they figure that they could actually make more money producing a flop than a hit, so they become producers and put on "Springtime for Hitler," a sure-fire flop. However, things go horribly "right," and soon the producers find themselves in a tight spot trying to repay their investors. It is not the flop they hoped for, and they wind up in jail, with a hilarious finale.

This is Mel Brooks' masterpiece. Brooks' won an Oscar for Best Screenplay-1968-no surprise,as this is as funny a film ever to be made! The song should've won an Oscar, as it is one of the most hilarious tunes to come out of any movie.