The Producers (Special Edition) (1968) Review

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This is it! The source, THE PRODUCERS, the 1968 release with screenplay and direction by Mel Brooks, juicy parts by Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars and others, and a well-deserved reputation as one of the funniest movie comedies ever. Filmed on a pittance (less than $1 million, cheap even by Sixties standards), THE PRODUCERS almost died unrecognized until it became a cult hit in New York, L.A., Chicago and then, everywhere.
SPOILER GRAF: The plot is brilliantly diabolical: a corrupt Broadway producer (Zero Mostel) and his nebbishy accountant assistant (Gene Wilder) deliberately oversell a play with the design to create a flop and keep the proceeds. They hire the worst possible playwright, director, and choreographer and deliberately insult the drama critics. But the play is so hilariously awful it becomes awfully hilarious. The essence of 1960s camp: It's good because it's so bad.
It's hard to overstate just how good Mel Brooks' first movie is. The low budget forced a lot of outside shooting in New York City, and as a result the movie looks fresh, not cosmetized. The premise of a play about "Adolf and Eva in a gay romp at Berchtesgaden" was, if anything, more offensive just 23 years after the end of the Second World War than it is today. A big gamble on Brooks' part, but it played.
This edition is well worth the extra couple of dollars over the "movie only" version. It includes a second CD, apparently put together about the time of the 2001 Broadway musical, and contains stills, bios, and an engaging documentary about the film's making and reception. The last is especially fun since all the principals involved (except the late Zero Mostel) are alive and active and possessed of strong memories of that "kooky" classic-in-the-making.
The 2005 movie with Broadway vets Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick is proving a disappointment to those who remember the original movie or the 2001 Broadway smash. The new movie took the Broadway book and set it in an imagined-and expensive--"indeterminate past" full of late 1950s cars and fashions. Unfortunately, what works on the stage doesn't always translate on film, and despite all the talent and money involved, the new movie comes across as stagey, self-absorbed and at times a bit labored. And LONG: half again as long as this original, which clocks in right at an hour and a half.
The verdict: All versions of THE PRODUCERS are funny, but the 1968 movie is the one to start with. Enjoy it now at a great price.

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Mel Brooks's directorial debut remains both a career high point and a classic show business farce. Hinging on a crafty plot premise, which in turn unleashes a joyously insane onstage spoof, "The Producers" is powered by a clutch of over-the-top performances, capped by the odd couple pairing of the late Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, making his screen debut.\nMostel is Max Bialystock, a gone-to-seed Broadway producer who spends his days wheedling checks from his "investors," elderly women for whom Bialystock is only too willing to provide company.When wide-eyed auditor Leo Bloom (Wilder) comes to check the books, he unwittingly inspires the wild-eyed Max to hatch a sure-fire plan: sell 25,000 percent of his next show, produce a deliberate flop, then abscond with the proceeds. Unfortunately for the producers (but fortunately for us), their candidate for failure is "Springtime for Hitler", a Brooksian conceit that envisions what Goebbels might have accomplished with a little help from Busby Berkeley.\nTruly startling during its original 1968 release, "The Producers" does show signs of age in some peripheral scenes that make merry at the expense of gays and women. But the show's nifty cast (notably including the late Dick Shawn as LSD, the space cadet that snags the musical's title role, and Kenneth Mars as the helmeted playwright) clicks throughout, and the sight of Mostel fleecing his marks is irresistibly funny. Add Wilder's literally hysterical Bloom, and it's easy to understand the film's exalted status among late-'60s comedies. "--Sam Sutherland"

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