The Producers

Composite Score: 86.73

Starring: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars, Estelle Winwood, Christopher Hewett, Andréas Voutsinas, Lee Meredith, and Renée Taylor

Director: Mel Brooks

Writer: Mel Brooks

Genres: Comedy, Music

MPAA Rating: PG

Box Office: $375,524 worldwide

My take on Watching This Film:

                The Producers is Mel Brooks’s satirical comedy film about a pair of Broadway producers trying to defraud their investors by putting on a show that is guaranteed to flop, keeping all the excess money that they raised in the process. The film stars Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as the titular producers – washed up Broadway mainstay Max Bialystock and uptight accountant Leo Bloom, respectively. The play that they find to put on is a celebration of Nazi Germany and Hitler, written by a former Nazi soldier, Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars), entitled Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden. They choose the most divisive director on Broadway, the gay, crossdressing Roger De Bris (Christopher Hewett) to helm the production and cast the hippie Lorenzo Saint DuBois a.k.a. “L.S.D.” (Dick Shawn) as Hitler. Unfortunately for the schemers, their horrible musical ends up being the perfect storm to morph from overtly offensive guaranteed failure to the farcical comedy of the season, and they are forced to scramble once the curtains rise. The film, having been garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Wilder and a win for Best Original Screenplay, is considered one of the greatest comedies in the history of film.

                Like most satires, The Producers requires buy-in from its audience. If you’re trying to watch the film at face value, you’re going to come away offended and most likely baffled, but if you recognize the commentary that Brooks wants to bring to the conversation with the film, you’ll recognize its humor as good-natured and its story as one with a lot to say about creatives, producers, and the broader entertainment industry. It highlights a truth that we see played out quite often in the world of comedy – that audiences are okay with offensive content when that content isn’t being celebrated – and it creates a winning comedy as a result. Womanizing and misogyny aren’t funny in their real forms, but they are funny when misogynists and womanizers become the topic of ridicule; likewise, Nazis, homophobes, racists, and the like don’t make for good comedy themselves, but when they’re being made fun of, it’s a riot. Brooks walks that line well by making his womanizers, Nazis, homophobes, antisemites, and everything else in between the butts of his jokes. Are there people who probably do watch this film at its face value and find it funny for the wrong reasons? Probably so, and that’s why you have the backlash against it on its initial release. That’s why a film like Jojo Rabbit can have a 58 Metacritic score and win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Critics (myself included at times) feel the need to moralize about films that already have their morals baked into them as a way to attempt to educate their audiences, and it usually doesn’t work.

                I should also mention the phenomenal work of Mostel and Wilder here. Obviously, Wilder received an Oscar nomination for his performance, and his wild neurotic breakdowns fully deserve every bit of recognition that they received. He plays Leo as the most unsympathetic loser ever and somehow still turns the character into a compelling sidekick. Zero Mostel carries the film for me, though, so much so that Nathan Lane’s performance in the 2005 remake simply feels like a Zero Mostel impression rather than any original character. Mostel’s Max is one of the most deplorable connivers ever to grace a Broadway office (at least in fiction), and he never shies away from it. It’s incredibly entertaining and highly humorous.

                Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder provide the proper leading performances to bolster the brilliant satire of Mel Brooks in The Producers, cementing the film’s place among the Greatest Films of All Time. Some might take umbrage with the various problematic themes of its comedy, but I’d encourage those viewers to remember that it is a satire and that the point is not to join in with the characters’ jokes but to laugh at the characters for making them. Currently, you can watch this film by renting it on most streaming services if it sounds like one you’d like to check out.