The Producers [G]

Max Bilaystock was once the King of Broadway: a titanic Broadway producer boasting hit after hit. Now he is broke, has hit bottom, and cannot possibly sink any lower. But when an introverted accountant named Leo Bloom innocently observes that a producer could make more money with a flop than he could with a hit, a ray of hope shines for Max and he and Leo become partners with the intention of putting the worst show on Broadway and making off with a million dollars. Unfortunately, things don’t go quite as planned. 

Writer, director, and producer Mel Brooks’ first feature film, The Producers is a timeless comedy classic that just gets better with every viewing. Since being created on screen in 1968, the story has gone on to be made into a Broadway show and later, in 2005, was made into a shining musical film starring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, and Will Ferrell. A wonderfully original story and dripping with delicious irony, The Producers is just fabulous, a film that one can watch again and again and again and not tire of. 

Max Bilaystock was once the King of Broadway: a titanic Broadway producer boasting hit after hit. Now he is broke, has hit bottom, and cannot possibly sink any lower. But when an introverted accountant named Leo Bloom innocently observes that a producer could make more money with a flop than he could with a hit, a ray of hope shines for Max and he and Leo become partners with the intention of putting the worst show on Broadway and making off with a million dollars. Unfortunately, things don’t go quite as planned. 

The story itself is brilliant: wholly original and completely open to all forms of comic interpretation, but it’s the irony behind it that makes it all the more funny. After all, it’s gasp-inducing to think that a New York showbiz Jew would choose to make a Broadway show, however distasteful, about Hitler. 

The movie is littered with wonderfully memorable and vibrant characters from Franz Liebkind, an obvious and devout Nazi trying to fit into American society, to Roger De Bris, a camp and gesturing Broadway director, to Lorenzo St. DuBois (L.S.D), a spaced out hippie who ends up starring as Hitler, thus turning the play from a flop into a huge hit. Without a doubt, the strength of the film lies in its wonderful story, but its movement and evolution is thanks to the memorable performances from its actors who play all these colourful characters so spectacularly. 

Special applause has to be given to Zero Mostel who stars as Max Bialystock. Before The Producers, Zero’s career had been damaged to the point of ruined by blacklisting, and his performance in the lead role of this film pulled him back up from the lurch and he entertained the masses with his superb timing, his memorable facial expressions, and his lung-rupturing yelling. 

Starring Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars, Lee Meredith, Christopher Hewitt, Andrea Voutsinas, Estelle Winwood, Renee Taylor, and William Hickey, The Producers is a story and a film that simply has no expiration date. Filled with music, racism, irony, slapstick, memorable characters, and heaps and heaps of comedy, it’s a movie that is invulnerable to ever growing stale, it will continue to amuse the masses for years and years to come.