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After such recent film flops as Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Life Stinks, Mel Brooks now has the biggest hit on the Broadway stage. How ironical that he returned to his 1968 Oscar winning screenplay The Producers, to do so (yes, he DID win the Oscar that year). From 1968 to 1974 it appeared that Brooks could do no wrong—besides The Producers, he offered Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein—films that offered intelligent spoofs and raucous humor.
Yet, as funny as these films were, modern audiences may not appreciate how groundbreaking The Producers was for its time. Many critics approached it gingerly upon its release with even the legendary Pauline Kael slams the film while sneaking in some faint praise:
"Some of the material is funny in an original way, but Mel Brooks, who wrote and directed (both for the first time) doesn't get the timing right and good gags fall apart or become gross or just don't develop . . . Still, terrible as this picture is, a lot of it is very enjoyable."
So perhaps Mel Brooks was before his time, or (more likely) he tread into virgin territory and enabled such recent comedies as Something About Mary more palatable or perhaps cursed us by inspiring inept spoofs like Scary Movie.
Nevertheless, The Producers continues to hold up on film 33 years after its initial run. With the stage play doing so well, surely more interest will develop in the original version to kick start an enterprising studio into developing a DVD version soon, complete with commentary by Brooks and Gene Wilder. There's still money to be wrung from this classic.
And the idea of squeezing money forms the clever and original premise of the film. The Producers begins with a sequence that shows former reputable Broadway producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) reduced to charming little old rich ladies with sexual fantasies (ie. "Hold me, touch me" and "Innocent little milkmaid and the naughty stable boy") in order to produce his plays and to pay the rent. Wimpy and neurotic accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) discovers that Bialystock made an unreported profit of $2,000 on a recent flop, and muses that under the right circumstances a man could make more money with a flop than he could with a Broadway hit—"The IRS isn't interested in flops."
Bialystock becomes inspired and convinces Bloom to abandon all else and join him in a new quest—to find the worst play ever and produce a sure-fire flop, guaranteed to close down after one night. Bloom has the accounting skills while Bialystock knows hundreds of little old rich ladies who will write out huge investment checks to "Cash." They can make a fortune by selling 25,000% ownership in the flop and pocket all the investments without fearing an audit.
Of course, the plan is doomed to fail (it's a comedy) even after they procure a virtual love story honoring Adolph Hitler, a director that resembles Ed Wood (literally), and a lead actor who is strung out on LSD. The centerpiece of the play is a huge 1930s style musical number of goose stepping chorus girls to "Springtime for Hitler" with such outrageously politically incorrect lyrics as "Don't be stupid, be a smarty! Come and join the Nazi Party!"
You may find yourself rolling on the floor nearly as much as Mostel and Wilder do themselves in another scene. It's that funny! If Brooks weren't Jewish, he might not have survived the repercussions such a number could incite. But as Brooks reveals in a recent interview over NPR radio, he personally didn't receive much flak for the Nazi spoofing. Instead, he received more negative feedback with perceived anti-gay references with his portrayal of the transvestite play director. But Brooks didn't give that much thought; the way he sees it is that he's depicting theater directors with generally accurate stereotypes—half the directors are gay, and the other half are Jewish.
It's hard to imagine this film working without Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. Mostel literally fills the screen and remains true to character throughout, continually obsessed with money and success and doing whatever it takes for his next con. There's an early sequence where he bemoans his failures, adding touches that compel us to sympathize with his character—after tossing his coffee on his dirty windows so he can see out of them, he shouts out at a Rolls Royce owner and relates how he was once the biggest producer on Broadway but Look at me now! I'm wearing a cardboard belt!" Mostel's character may now be depraved, but is he any different from businessmen who crave success? He's completely up front with his deception (Thank you, I knew I could con you), and he's certainly a lot funnier!
The Producers also proved to be Gene Wilder's breakthrough film, although his most memorable comedies are other Mel Brooks movies. They certainly click together perfectly here. His neurotic security blanket-craving accountant has become an icon, who plays off Mostel's character perfectly. While Mostel is physically large and cocky, Wilder plays the opposite. When Mostel becomes especially excited or aggressive at the first meeting, Wilder suddenly retreats into frenetic wimpishness, screaming things like I'm wet. I'm wet. I'm hysterical and I'm wet. I'm in pain and I'm wet and I'm still hysterical! His Oscar nomination for supporting actor was well deserved; of course, comedy actors have very little chance in actually winning the top prize.
Surprisingly the Academy courageously rewarded Brooks with a screenwriting Oscar for The Producers in the late 1960s. Just to write such a screenplay could be seen as being in poor taste, yet because Brooks is Jewish and because his two lead characters are decidedly Jewish (without saying so), he is able to create one of the greatest outrages in film history. What could be more anti-Nazi than having a sixties flower child portray Hitler or having a crazy German writer claim to know intimate details about his heroNot many people know it, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer.
Obviously more mainstream audiences have discovered Brooks' genius through his Broadway production of The Producers. Ironic that it took over thirty years since its breakthrough on film. I'd love to see what Lane and Broderick have done with the roles, but feel fortunate that I discovered the joys of the film long ago. |
