Producers (Original)
There can be no doubt that at the end of the day, Mel Brooks will be remembered as being somebody who changed the face of film comedy forever. Aside from his (brilliantly funny) spoofs / pastiches with their anything goes for a laugh approach, Brooks could also be counted on to write original pieces of work as well, and the most famous example of this is this 1967 release with absolutely no sign of political correctness in the air whatsoever to deter him from telling a story whose main purpose was to enable people to be able to laugh at Adolph Hitler and make a mockery out of this monstrous man who had once held ambitions of conquering the world through the methods of orchestrating the mass murder of millions of Jews (a fact which Brooks who was himself a Jew was obviously aware of). Many years later, a full blown Broadway musical remake was done and made into its own movie even as it could never hold a candle to the original, but here Brooks was seemingly working on his own wavelength, finishing up the movie even as he was told that it would never be released due to its content and then seeing it flop in theaters at that time even as Brooks himself managed to snag an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay. It wasnāt until years later that the film would play the college campus revival circuit and find its true audience which allowed it to become a cult comedy classic. The plot (based upon the actions of real people whom Brooks had met working in the New York stage scene) involves a scam being staged by two producers to put on a play that would be a guaranteed flop with the caveat being that by raising more money than would actually be spent on the playās production itself, a quick closing would mean that any additional leftover money would be theirs for the taking with nobody for them to answer to, an act of outright fraud that nonetheless theoretically could still work if they got what they wanted which was a disastrous opening night which results in the play never being performed again. The star of the movie here is Zero Mostel, not a household name by any means unless youāre talking about the New York City / Broadway theatre scene, where he amassed three Tony Award wins and in many ways was forcefully relegated to performing in that scene after being blacklisted in the 1950s for allegedly being Communist and thus banned from working in Hollywood films. This film more or less represented his ācomebackā so to speak and remains one of the very few opportunities that modern audiences currently have to see him on the screen (and no doubt some modern tastes may or may not care for his style of performing). Mostel plays Max Bialystock, a once successful and now has been Broadway producer who scrapes by in life through screwing various little old ladies with large bank accounts, in essence acting as a gigolo for the elderly and even at times playing perverted sex games with them (including Estelle Winwood, a veteran actress who died at age 101 and reportedly hated the film even stating that she was ashamed to have been in it). Even as heās telling these women that their steady checks are for his next play instead of being for his upkeep, his own self loathing over such an existence is downright palpable as he usually just does what he has to do so that he can get away from them as quickly as possible. One day he receives a visit from an accountant named Leo Bloom, played by Gene Wilder right on the cusp of his legendary career and garnering a Best Supporting Actor Oscar Nomination as a result. Wilder has been sent over by his firm to check the books, and in time makes an outrageous suggestion when it comes to the scheme about producing a flop play but still making a fortune in the process. Mostel flips head over heels on the idea even as Wilder has just realized the implications of suggesting something so illegal to a client and has an extended anxiety attack (during which time we learn that he always carries around a piece of his soft blue baby blanket to comfort him). Once he calms down, Mostel makes him his partner in crime and they set to work in finding a play that is so bad, so wretched, and so absolutely hideous that nobody could actually want to see it or like it. And that they do: Springtime For Hitler, an ode to The Fuhrer as being a beautiful, misunderstood man, written in all sincere seriousness by a crazed misfit Nazi living on a NYC rooftop and played by character actor Kenneth Mars. The playwright (who mistakes the two Jewish producers at first as being Nazi hunters) is delighted that His Fuhrer will finally be honored in a real Broadway production, and then itās on to signing up the worst theater director that they can find, a campy, crossdressing homosexual (who resembles many New York art scene types who always had their heads planted firmly in their asses) played by Christopher Hewett and his ghoulish assistant played by Andreas Voutsinas. The pieces all seem to be in place for an opening night production that will be a royal disaster with Mostel even attempting to openly bribe the local theater critic in order to just piss him off. But after the inane opening number that celebrates Hitler as being the savior of Germany, we suddenly see where Mostel has gone horribly, irretrievably wrong with the casting of his lead actor, that being Dick Shawn in his legendary turn as the ultra hippie beatnik Lorenzo St. Dubois (aka LSD) who performs an astonishingly bad hippie song at his audition but once cast in the lead role manages to turn the tables on Mostel and Wilder by playing Hitler as a completely pompous buffoon who still talks like a hippie beatnik and constantly makes a fool out of himself trying to figure out what to do next. In short, he makes Hitler FUNNY, and in turn the audience actually starts to LAUGH (instead of being revolted), turning the play into a runaway hit and foiling the plans of Mostel and Wilder while bringing Marsā Nazi playwright to a boiling rage. In many ways, a case can be made that Shawn (a legendary stand up comedy performance artist who dropped dead on stage of a heart attack in 1987 all while the audience laughed uproariously and thought that it was all part of the show), even with limited screen time, is really the star of the film due to him just being so over the top hilarious with both his own portrayal of LSD and the scenes showing him on stage made up to look like Hitler while still using all kinds of beatnik slang (and a similar case could be made for him standing out amongst the gigantic cast of Itās A Mad Mad Mad Mad World as well) and more importantly bringing kharma back in a big way upon the heads of the main characters. Thereās a little bit of a tacked on finale featuring Mostel, Wilder and Mars attempting to blow up the theater as a form of revenge for their plans backfiring, but it also shows that not having Shawn onscreen at all during the last 15 minutes of the film confirms just how much life and comic inspiration he brought to the table. Nonetheless, Brooksā Oscar winning script crackles all around no matter who is on camera, with what is at times a biting, cynical attitude that borders on being intense black comedy. Wilder definitely boosted his stock enough here (and got on so well with Brooks that he would continue to work with him for years to come) to become the comedy legend that we know him for and as for Mostel, sadly his film career would continue to remain spotty even as he remained a Broadway legend (including going on to play the title character in Fiddler On The Roof before being snubbed to star in the film version). Despite a very stagy opening 20 minutes (where the two main characters never even leave their office!), by the time we witness the completely ridiculous opening number of Springtime For Hitler (along with shots of audience membersā mouths agape for good reason), we know that this is comedy genius on a level of which we would never again see the likes of in this day and age, and for that reason itās a real shameā¦
8/10