Actors - The Producers

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	Actors - The Producers

The Producers is a 1968 feature length comedy film set in New York City in which two con-men attempt to cheat theatre "angels" (investors) out of their investment money.

The film was adapted by its writer/director, Mel Brooks, into The Producers, a Broadway musical in 2001. The Producers, a film based on that musical was released on December 25, 2005.

Cast

Plot

Max Bialystock (Mostel) is a failed, aging Broadway producer who encounters nebbish accountant Leo Bloom (Wilder) when the latter is sent to Bialystock's office to do his books. A chance comment by Bloom inspires a scheme to massively oversell shares in a Broadway production, then flee to Brazil with the money. They set out to purposely make a horrific flop, so that no one will ever audit its books, and thus avoid a payout. After an extensive search they find an unproduced play which Bailystock gleefully describes as "a love letter to Hitler", written by a deranged ex-Nazi named Franz Liebkind (Mars). They convince Liebkind to sign over the rights, then hire the monumentally untalented (and very very gay) director Roger De Bris to stage the production. The part of Hitler goes to a brain-damaged but charismatic hippie named Lorenzo St. Dubois (Shawn) who wanders into the wrong theater by accident during the casting call.

The result of all of this is Springtime for Hitler, a cheerfully upbeat musical comedy detailing the dictator's life which opens with a lavish production number celebrating Nazi Germany overrunning Europe. Unfortunately for the protaganists, their attempt to make an unwatchable play backfires as the audience finds the inept production so funny that they misinterpret it as an over the top satire on Nazism and universally hail it as a hit.

Liebkind, who really believed they were producing a tribute to Hitler, is insulted by the audience's laughter, and interrupts the play, which only makes it funnier to the audience. After he attempts to shoot the producers in their office, the three of them band together and in desperation blow up the theatre to end the production. They get caught in the explosion and are haulled off to jail. Found "incredibly guilty" in their criminal trial, they are sent to prison where they cast a new show amongst their fellow prisoners, running the exact same scam as before.

Awards

It won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Wilder). The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Trivia

Max Bialystock is named after the Polish city of Białystok.
Leo Bloom is named for the subject of the novel Ulysses, Leopold Bloom. Leo meets Max on June 16, the date that all of the action in Ulysses takes place.
At one point during their search for "the worst play ever written", Max reads a sentence about a man waking up one morning finding himself turned into a giant cockroach. Max rejects it, on the grounds that it is "too good". Despite the seemingly ridiculous content of the sentence, it is indeed "too good": it is the opening sentence to Franz Kafka's classic The Metamorphosis.
Carmen Ghia is named for the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.
Writer/director Mel Brooks can be heard (but not seen) singing the line "Don't be stupid, be a smarty/Come and join the Nazi Party" in the opening of Springtime for Hitler.
At its theatrical release in Sweden, the film was given the Swedish title Producenterna (The Producers), but it was not a success then. After it was re-released under the title Det våras för Hitler (Springtime for Hitler), it did score with the Swedish audience. Because of this, all of Mel Brooks' films were given a title with Det våras för... (Springtime for...) in Sweden, up until Life Stinks (e.g. Blazing Saddles being called Det våras för sheriffen (Springtime for the Sheriff) and Spaceballs beging called Det våras för rymden (Springtime for Space)). After this, Mel Brooks himself has complained at the Swedish habit of always calling his films something with Springtime for... and so, his latest two films have been called Robin Hood: Karlar i trikåer (Robin Hood: Men in Tights) and Dracula: Död men lycklig (Dracula: Dead but Happy) respectively (even though the latter is called Det våras för Dracula on the Swedish DVD cover).

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Actors - The Producers

Cast

Plot

Awards

Trivia

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