The Producers
It’s been at least 20 years since I last watched Mel Brooks’s original “The Producers.” The experience was a bit like my first time watching “Dr. Strangelove.” My mom raised me as a massive Brooks fan, and it was her first time watching it as well; it bounced off of us, where we enjoyed his straight parodies more than the narrative comedy at work. Like with “Strangelove,” the satirical bite of “The Producers” only works now that I’m more aware of how beautifully Brooks threads the needle between bad taste and familiar Hollywood storytelling. I still love the likes of “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein” more, but now, at 46, I can see “The Producers” as the rebellious, rambunctious classic that it is.
Brooks’s tale is a simple one- we start with a corrupt Broadway producer, Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel), who seduces little old ladies out of money to fund his productions. As he’s looking to get another check out of one particular old lady, in walks Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), an accountant who’s looking to audit Max’s books. As he’s working on that, he realizes that, for his last production, he raised more money than he needed. When the production flopped, nobody noticed. Leo realizes something Max hasn’t- you could potentially make more money off of a flop than a hit. That leads to an idea- find the worst play ever written, and over-finance it to an astronomical degree; when it flops, you can retire off of what you’ve made because you don’t owe anyone back profits. Their disasterpiece? Springtime for Hitler, written by a psychotic Nazi playwright (Franz Liebkind, played by Kenneth Mars).
The 2001 musical adaptation, and 2005 filmed adaptation, was a juggernaut that reinvented Brooks’s film, but kept its darkly comedic premise. However you watch this story, the heart of it is the dynamic between Max and Leo. The musical really allows the characters to breathe and get fleshed out, and it really helps that Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are really in their element as the characters. What Brooks’s original film lacks in depth it makes up for in comedic anarchy. Mostel and Wilder have the same dynamic of an amoral con artist and a straight-laced accountant, but a different energy. There’s something gleefully corrupt about Lane’s Max; Mostel’s is less appealing, personally but Brooks understands why we’d follow him all the same, and it’s a wonderfully sleazy performance. On the opposite end is Wilder, who was still a fresh face at the time. His Leo is hysteria personified, someone who can’t help but be anxious when cornered; it’s something Wilder plays pitched to 11- I’m not sure if it completely works for me, but he and Mostel make a delightful team.
Mel Brooks wasn’t aiming for something profound here- he often isn’t, but when you watch films like “Young Frankenstein” and “Blazing Saddles,” you can tell that the anarchy is at the service of something more than just creating comedic insanity, even if its something as straightforward as twisting at genres. The film’s 84 minutes is all about throwing absurdity upon absurdity at you constantly, as well as watching two opposites connect when it comes to profiting off of failure. Personally, it’s all very slapdash, but so much works in each moment that we don’t care. Mars is a frightening and hilarious presence as Franz, someone whose adoration for Hitler comes through, but also isn’t immune to the bug of Broadway (“I am the author, I outrank you.”) As the busty secretary Ulla, Lee Meredith’s is ridiculously easy on the eyes; her whole purpose is to be bubbly and sexy while breaking out into dance, even if it’s not really a character. Christopher Hewett as the flamingly gay director, Roger De Bris, and Andréas Voutsinas as his lover, Carmen Ghia, are walking and talking cliches, but absolutely a joy to watch. The supporting highlight, however, is Dick Shawn as Lorenzo St. DuBois (L.S.D.), the hippie actor who comes in and crushes the role of Hitler; once you see his take on the most evil person of the 20th century, you’ll understand that sometimes, comedy is the best way to take sociopaths down a notch or two.
Everything comes down to the central sequence in the film, the debut of Springtime for Hitler. In this moment, the genius of Brooks as a satirist, and a lover of musical theatre, is on full display. It is a tour de force that makes every right choice in when to cut from the stage, to the flabbergasted audience, and to the delighted Max and Leo. The performance by Shawn; the beautiful insanity of the set design and choreography; the iconic music and lyrics by Brooks; and his direction of the audience, creating reaction shots that are as memorable now as they had to have been in 1967. Even if not everything in “The Producers” works for me, this part of the film does. I think he found his groove when he moved into genre parodies, but I can’t fault Brooks for swinging for the fences, and coming up with a film that made such an unbelievable impact on comedy. This is rebellion against the system, and few people did that better than Brooks.
