Les Producteurs

Why this movie is brilliant and funny: 1-A hilarious Gene Wilder with his amazing freak-out moments. I think many actors copied his scenes from this film.

2-Excellent satire about hitler and nazis. Many lines from this film are recognizable and became a comedy standard.

3-Amazing performance by Dick Shaw as L. S. D and as the theatrical hitler. He is funny and subversive at the same time.

4-Great 1on1 scenes with the main actors, especially the ones which involve heavy physical acting.

5- It is intelligent filmmaking which shows how progressive and funny Mel Brooks was; and that was his first film...

Just watch it, it's 1,5h and it's beautifully funny! 10/10.

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

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.

Mel brooks' first attempt at directing is this film " The Producers, " originally entitled "Spring Time For Hitler." It's the story of down and out producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel), once known as the 'King of Broadway' who can't believe his incredible streak of bad luck. Once when the Moon of his Fortune rode high, he had Six shows running at once. However now-a-days he's so poor, he wears a Cardboard belt. Into his life arrives a timid little man named Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder). As an accountant, he makes a startling discovery. In his last play Max, raised more money to produce his show than he needed. As a result, Leo speculates Max could make more money with a flop, than with a hit. Max demands to know how and a crooked scheme develops. Max decides to find the worse play ever written. He will then hire the worse, director, the worse actors and then raise a $1,000.000 for a flop of a play which is sure to close the first night, allowing Max to keep all the rest of the money. This then is the plot and with Bloom becoming his partner, the pair plans on keeping the fortune. The movie which also casts Dick Shawn as 'L.S.D.' or Lorenzo St. DuBois, Kenneth Mars as Franz Liebkind, Christopher Hewett and Roger De Bris all combine to create a wonderful masterpiece of hysterical madcap comedy. It is with little wonder this film began as an unwanted idea and ended up becoming the surprise hit of the decade. A milestone for Mel Brooks, but a Classic for any audience. ****

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.