THE PRODUCERS (1968 FILM)

:''This page is about the 1968 film. For the 2005 movie, see The Producers (2005 film). For other uses, see The Producers (disambiguation)''
'''The Producers''' is a 1968 feature-length comedy film written and directed by Mel Brooks. In the film, two New York City con men (Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom) attempt to cheat theater 'angels' (investors) out of their investment money by deliberately producing a "flop," or unsuccessful show.
This was the first film directed by Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony winner Mel Brooks, and it sparked Brooks' lengthy career.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Influences

Release history

Reception

Awards and Recognition

Cultural legacy

Quotations

See also

References

External links

Plot

Max Bialystock is a failed, aging Broadway producer who ekes out a living romancing rich old women in exchange for money for his "next play." Nebbish accountant Leo Bloom arrives at Bialystock's office to do his books and discovers a two thousand dollar error in the accounts of Bialystock's last play. Bialystock cons Bloom into hiding the fraud, and while shuffling numbers, Bloom has a revelation which Bialystock immediately puts into action: a scheme to massively oversell shares in a Broadway production, then purposely make a horrific flop, so that no one will ever audit its books, thus avoiding a payout and leaving the duo free to flee to Rio de Janiero with the profits. Leo is hesitant to commit to the criminal venture, but is eventually convinced by Max that he deserves some happiness, and his current drab existence is no better than being in prison.
After an extensive search the now-partners find an unproduced play worthy of their efforts: ''Springtime for Hitler, a Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva in Berchtesgaden'', a play which Bialystock gleefully describes as "a love letter to Hitler." It has been written in total sincerity by deranged ex-Nazi Franz Liebkind. They convince the crazed Liebkind to sign over the stage rights by convincing him they want to show the world "the true Hitler, the Hitler with a song in his heart". Bialystock then collects money from dozens of little old ladies—ultimately selling 25,000 percent of the play—and hire the monumentally untalented (and comically gay) director Roger De Bris to stage the production. The part of Hitler goes to a charismatic hippie named Lorenzo St. Dubois (aka LSD), who wanders into the wrong theater by accident during the casting call.
The result of all of this is a cheerfully upbeat, utterly tasteless musical comedy detailing the life of the dictator, which opens with a lavish production number celebrating Nazi Germany overrunning Europe. Unfortunately for the protagonists, their attempt to make an unwatchable play backfires as, after initial dumbfounded disbelief, the audience finds LSD's beatnik-like portrayal of Hitler to be a hilarious parody, and the play is a universally praised hit.
After an enraged Liebkind attempts to shoot the producers in their office, the three of them band together and, in desperation, blow up the theater to end the production. They get caught in the explosion and are arrested. Found "incredibly guilty" in their criminal trial, they are sent to prison, where they proceed to create a new play starring their fellow convicts entitled "Prisoners of Love," running the same scam that landed them in prison.

Cast

Zero Mostel - Max Bialystock

Gene Wilder - Leo Bloom

Kenneth Mars - Franz Liebkind

Lee Meredith - Ulla

Estelle Winwood - Hold Me-Touch Me

Christopher Hewett - Roger De Bris

Andréas Voutsinas - Carmen Ghia

Dick Shawn - Lorenzo St. DuBois (L.S.D.)

Renée Taylor - Eva Braun

★ The foreman of the jury is played by Bill Macy, who would later star in the 1970s sitcom, ''Maude'', and numerous Hollywood films. The film also features Barney Martin, who would later achieve fame as Jerry Seinfeld's father Morty on ''Seinfeld''.

★ The writer-director Mel Brooks' is heard briefly in the film, singing "Don't be stupid, be a smarty/Come and join the Nazi Party" in the song ''Springtime For Hitler''. His version of line is also dubbed into each performance of the musical and in the movie version of the musical.

★ According to Mel Brooks during an interview in the bonus DVD of ''The Producers'', Dustin Hoffman was originally cast as Franz Liebkind, but the night before shooting (according to Brooks) bowed out to star in ''The Graduate'', which starred Mel Brooks' wife, Anne Bancroft.

Influences

★ Max Bialystock is named after the Polish city of Białystok. A 'bialystoker,' is a roll similar to a bagel.

★ Leo Bloom is named for the subject of the novel ''Ulysses'', Leopold Bloom. Leo meets Max on June 16, the date that all of the action in ''Ulysses'' takes place. Bialystock at one point also compares Leo to Prince Myshkin, the titular protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel ''The Idiot''.

★ One of the rejected manuscripts in the search for "the worst play ever" features the opening sentence to Franz Kafka's ''The Metamorphosis'', where a character named Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a "giant cockroach". Bialystock quickly dismisses the story idea as "too good".

★ Carmen Ghia is named after the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, a popular car in production in 1968.

Release history

According to Brooks, after the film was completed, MGM executives declined to release it due to "bad taste" until Peter Sellers saw the film privately and placed an advertisement in Variety in support of the film's wider release^[1]. It was still only released to only a small number of theaters^[2]. ''The Producers'' was rated PG by the MPAA for brief mild language.
In 2002 ''The Producers'' was re-issued to three theaters by Rialto Pictures and earned $111,866^{[3] [4]}at the box office.
In 2001 Brooks adapted the film into a Broadway musical of the same name (''The Producers''). In 2005, a film, based in turn on that musical, was released (''The Producers'').
''The Producers'' is currently available on DVD, released by MGM. As of 2007, the film continues to be distributed to art-film and repertory cinemas by Rialto.

Reception

The film received harsh reviews from New York critics Renata Adler ("shoddy and gross and cruel" in the New York Times), Stanley Kauffmann ("the film bloats into sogginess." -- New Republic), Pauline Kael ("amateurishly crude" in the New Yorker) and Andrew Sarris, partly due to its directorial style and broad ethnic humor.^[5] Negative reviewers noted the bad taste and insensitivity (against a narrow and aggressively conservative moral standard) of devising a broad comedy about two Jewish men 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).^[6] Time Magazine's reviewers wrote, "...hilariously funny ... Unfortunately, the film is burdened with the kind of plot that demands resolution ... ends in a whimper of sentimentality ... The movie is disjointed and inconsistent ..."^[7] and "... a wildly funny joy ride ...", ^[8] "...despite its bad moments, is some of the funniest American cinema comedy in years."^[9] 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."^[10]
Reviews in the U.K. were positive to very positive.^[11]
Ironically, despite the complaints about the content, many of the people involved in the project, such as Brooks, Mostel, Wilder etc were all of Jewish origin. Both Eva Braun and Hitler are played by Jewish actors, and Goebbels is briefly represented by a black actor.

Awards and Recognition

In 1968, ''The Producers'' won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay—Written Directly for the Screen and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Wilder).
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.
In 1969, ''The Producers'' won a Writers Guild of America Best Original Screenplay award.
In 2004, ''The Producers'' was placed at #11 of the American Film Institute list of The 100 Funniest Films Of All Time.

Cultural legacy

★ Peter Sellers was a fan of the film and appeared on Michael Parkinson's BBC1 chat show ''Parkinson'' in a Nazi helmet reciting the entire "Hitler was a better painter than Churchill" speech. (''Parkinson'' BBC1 09/11/74 & BBC Audiobooks (5 Feb 1996))

★ The title of the U2 album ''Achtung Baby'' comes from a line in the movie.

★ 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. Because of this, all of Mel Brooks' films were given a title with ''Det våras för...'' (''Springtime For...'') in Sweden, up until ''Life Stinks'' (''Det våras för slummen'', ''Springtime For The Slums''). For example, ''Blazing Saddles'' was retitled ''Det våras för sheriffen'' (''Springtime For The Sheriff'') and ''Spaceballs'' was retitled ''Det våras för rymden'' (''Springtime For Space''). After this, Mel Brooks himself has complained at the Swedish habit of always calling his films something with 'Springtime For...' and so, his last two films have been called ''Robin Hood: Karlar i trikåer'' ('') and ''Dracula: Död men lycklig'' (''), although the latter is called ''Det våras för Dracula'' on the Swedish DVD cover.

Quotations

From Mel Brooks' ''U.S. News and World Report'' interview:
:"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." ^[12]

See also

★ Differences between film and musical versions of The Producers

References

1. The Producers(1968): Deluxe Edition DVD: The Making of The Producers | Interview with Mel Brooks
2.
The Producers(1968): Deluxe Edition DVD review" Mark Bourne
3. Business Data for The Producers (1968)
4. Business Data for The Producers (Re-issue)
5. When The Nazis Became Nudniks J. Hoberman
6. An audience for Mel Brooks's The Producers: the avant-garde of the masses.(Critical essay) Symons, Alex
7. The Producers (review)
8. Arts & Entertainment (Cinema)
9. Arts & Entertainment (Cinema)
10. The Producers (review) Variety Staff
11. See Symons
12. Shute, Nancy. Mel Brooks: His humor brings down Hitler, and the house ''U.S. News and World Report''. August 12, 2001. Retrieved 2007-05-04

External links

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★ Roger de Bris Fanlisting