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The Producers (1967 film)

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The Producers
Theatrical release poster.
Directed byMel Brooks
Written byMel Brooks
Produced bySidney Glazier
StarringZero Mostel
Gene Wilder
Kenneth Mars
Dick Shawn
CinematographyJoseph Coffey
Edited byRalph Rosenblum
Music byJohn Morris
Distributed byEmbassy Pictures
Release date
March 18, 1968[1]
Running time
88 minutes[1][2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$941,000[3][4]
Box office$1,681,986 (rentals)[5]

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 can repay (the shares they've sold total more than 100% of any profits) 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.

Plot

Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is a washed-up, aging Broadway producer who ekes out a living romancing lascivious wealthy elderly women in exchange for money for his next play. Nebbish 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 could repay by selling more than 100% of the shares in the potential profits. Bialystock persuades Bloom to hide the relatively minor fraud, and, while shuffling numbers, Bloom has a revelation: a producer could make a lot more money with a flop than a hit. Bialystock immediately puts this scheme 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 Hitler you loved, the Hitler you knew, 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, a.k.a. 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 % 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 and humiliated by L.S.D.'s portrayal of Hitler, accuses them of breaking the "Siegfried Oath". After a reconciliation, 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 (while also referring to him as "the most selfish man I have ever met in my life") the jury finds them "incredibly guilty" and they go to prison. In the end, Leo, Max, and Franz go back to producing plays with their fellow inmates ("Prisoners of Love"). Leo Bloom, however, continues the same old scam of overselling shares of the play to the other prisoners (50%) and even to the warden (100%). The song is performed while the credits are shown.

Cast

See also: List of The Producers characters

Production

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.

— Mel Brooks, in an August 2001 interview[6]

Mel Brooks wanted to title the film Springtime For Hitler, but Embassy Pictures producer Joseph E. Levine would not let him. Then, following a screening that Peter Sellars attended, both he and Levine talked about a release for the film, which he liked a lot. When Brooks was brought in, he choose the film's popular title. Sellars was one of several actors considered for the film.

The original screenplay had Franz Liebkind make Max and Leo swear The Siegfried Oath.[7] 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.[8] In a making-of documentary that accompanied the 2002 DVD release of the film,[7] 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. When Hoffman did win playing Ben Braddock, Brooks called Kenneth Mars in as Liebkind. Another man he called in was Bill Macy, who played the jury foreman in a cameo role.

The film was shot at the Chelsea Studios in New York City, where the musical version (2005) was also shot.[9] Additional footage included such midtown Manhattan locales as Central Park, the Empire State Building and Lincoln Center.

Writer-director Mel Brooks is heard briefly in the film, his voice dubbed over a dancer (played by Carl Reiner) 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 2005 movie version.

Release

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.[7][10] Sellers was familiar with the film because, according to Brooks, Sellers "had accepted the role of Bloom and then was never heard from [Brooks] again."[7][10] 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".[11] Following the film's lackluster response in the UK, German distributors did decline to distribute it,[citation needed] 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" (Spaceballs); and "Springtime For The Slum" (Life Stinks).[12]

Reception

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.[13] 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, 23 years after the end of World War II.[14] 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 Dr. 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 that the film was "hilariously funny [...] Unfortunately, the film is burdened with the kind of plot that demands resolution [... and] ends in a whimper of sentimentality." Although they labelled it "disjointed and inconsistent",[15] they also praised it as "a wildly funny joy ride",[16] and concluded by saying that "despite its bad moments, [it] is some of the funniest American cinema comedy in years."[17] The film industry trade paper Variety wrote, "The film is unmatched in the scenes featuring Mostel and Wilder alone together, and several episodes with other actors are truly rare."[18] Over the years, the film has gained in stature, garnering a 93% certified fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, the film holds an extremely rating of 97, making it one of the highest rated films on the site as well as the 2nd highest rated comedy (behind The Wizard of Oz). In his review decades late Roger Ebert later claimed that "this is one of the funniest movies ever made."[19] [20] 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.[14]

Awards and honors

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

Re-releases and adaptations

In 2002 The Producers was re-released in three theaters by Rialto Pictures and earned $111,866[21][22] at the box office. As of 2007, the film continues to be distributed to art-film and repertory cinemas by Rialto.[citation needed]

Brooks has adapted the story twice more, as 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.

Influences

Precedents

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. This same basic plot device also appeared at one point in a draft script for the 1935 Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera.[25]

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.

  • Peter Sellers 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 February 1996))
  • An episode of the TV series Remington Steele, "Springtime for Steele," has two men trying to pull the same scam by promoting a tour of an untalented singer after selling the rights for major profit. But just like in the movie, the scam is undone when the tour is a sellout. Keeping with a running theme in the series, Steele cites the movie as inspiration for the scheme.
  • The title of the U2 album Achtung Baby comes from a line in the movie.[26]
  • Season four of Curb Your Enthusiasm revolves around The Producers. Larry David is hired by Mel Brooks as a surefire way of ruining the play and ending its run. Instead, reflecting the actual plotline of the play, David turns it into a huge success.
  • According to critic David Ehrenstein, the film marked the first use of the term "Creative Accounting."[27] However, a philandering husband uses the term in the 1962 movie "Boys Night Out" when he makes up the name of a class he is supposedly taking.
  • In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, this is Patrick's favorite movie.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c The Producers at the TCM Movie Database
  2. ^ a b Renata Adler (March 19, 1968). "The Producers (1968)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  3. ^ Box Office Information for The Producers. IMDb. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  4. ^ The Making of The Producers. The Guardian. Retrieved April 2, 2013
  5. ^ "Big Rental Films of 1968", Variety, 8 January 1969 p 15. Please note this figure is a rental accruing to distributors.
  6. ^ Shute, Nancy (August 12, 2001). "Mel Brooks: His humor brings down Hitler, and the house". U.S. News and World Report. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
  7. ^ a b c d e The Making of The Producers' at IMDb
  8. ^ Original 1967 The Producers screenplay[dead link]
  9. ^ Richard Alleman (2005). New York: The Movie Lover's Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie New York. Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-1634-4.
  10. ^ a b Mark Bourne. "The Producers(1968): Deluxe Edition DVD review". dvdjournal.com. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  11. ^ "Radio Times". 24–30 November 2001. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. ^ The Entertainment Weekly Guide to the Greatest Movies Ever Made I. New York: Warner Books. 1996. p. 42.
  13. ^ J. Hoberman (2001-04-15). "When The Nazis Became Nudniks". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  14. ^ a b Alex Symons (2006-03-22). "An audience for Mel Brooks's The Producers: the avant-garde of the masses.(Critical essay)". Journal of Popular Film and Television. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  15. ^ "The Producers (review)". time.com. 1968-01-26. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  16. ^ "Arts & Entertainment (Cinema)". time.com. 1968-04-19. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  17. ^ "Arts & Entertainment (Cinema)". time.com. 1968-05-10. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  18. ^ Variety Staff (1968-01-01). "The Producers (review)". variety.com. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  19. ^ "The Producers (1968) Reviews". RottenTomatoes.com
  20. ^ Roger Ebert (July 23, 2000). "The Producers (1968)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  21. ^ "Business Data for The Producers (1968)". imdb.com. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  22. ^ "Business Data for The Producers (Re-issue)". boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  23. ^ "Metamorphosis". Retrieved 2009-10-03.
  24. ^ J. Hoberman. "about / The Producers". New York Times. rialtopictures.com. Retrieved 2009-08-24.
  25. ^ Joe Adamson (1973). Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 271.
  26. ^ "U2 History FAQ - Everything You Know Is Wrong". U2faqs.com. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
  27. ^ [1][dead link]
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