THE PRODUCERS
(1968)With Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn, Lee Meredith, Christopher Hewitt
Directed by Mel Brooks
Reviewed by JL
Before Lane and Broderick, there were Mostel and Wilder. Mel
Brooks's first directorial effort remains one of his strongest, ranking
with YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN as one of his two best comedies.
(BLAZING
SADDLES, his most successful film, has not aged as well.)
Brooks
still had a long way to go in terms of film technique -- some scenes
are amateurishly staged and framed, while the overall pace is
inconsistent -- but those are minor problems compared to the film's
hilarious premise, screenplay, and brilliant comic cast.
Third-rate Broadway impresario Zero Mostel and accountant Gene Wilder
are the unlikely pair of producers who sell 25,000 percent interest in
a play they intend to make the worst, most offensive stage production
in history. The play they choose -- Springtime for Hitler: a
Gay
Romp with Adolf and Eva in Berchestgarten -- seems like the perfect
choice, but their determination to make every element of the production
as tasteless or inept as possible results in a madcap, crowd-pleasing
farce. Mostel's performance is on the scale of Mt. Everest:
undisciplined, but brilliantly so, if such a thing is
possible.
Wilder, still a relative newcomer to the screen, is as endearingly
effective as he would be throughout his first decade in films (after
which, he tended to give the same frenzied performance again and
again). The supporting cast is equally good, especially
Kenneth
Mars as the lumpkin Nazi playwright, and Dick Shawn as the Rat Pack
generation's idea of a flower child. 
- JL
Comedy The Stuff You Gotta Watch
ADD ANOTHER
QUOTE AND MAKE IT A
GALLON
"Will the dancing Hitlers wait in the wings? We are seeing
only
singing Hitlers."
REMAKE
The Producers (2005) Starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in
the film version of the Broadway musical version of the original film.
http://thestuffyougottawatch.com
Copyright © 2010 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee