The Producers (2002)
The Producers Image Cover
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Director:Mel Brooks
Studio:MGM (Video & DVD)
Rating:4.5
Rated:PG
Date Added:2006-01-01
Last Seen:2014-10-27
Purchased On:2006-01-01
ASIN:B00005JK45
UPC:0027616868329
Price:24.98
Genre:Comedy
Release:2002-03-12
Location:0079
Duration:90
Picture Format:Widescreen
Aspect Ratio:1.85:1
Sound:Dolby
Features:Subtitled
Custom 1:Copied
Mel Brooks  ...  (Director)
  ...  (Writer)
 
Zero Mostel  ...  
Gene Wilder  ...  
Summary: 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.
Mostel 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.
Truly 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