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The Producers, Mel Brooks's wildly hilarious directorial debut and the source for his Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, soars with savage satire and one of the most perfect pairings in movie history: Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. Mostel portrays a grandiose but washed-up Broadway producer who teams up with Wilder's timid accountant to produce the worst show ever written, as part of a scheme to defraud investors. The chemistry between the two leads bubbles with animosity, affection, and mutually enabling dementia. Mostel reaches unimaginable heights of wide-eyed mania in scenes where he seduces a bevy of adoring octogenarians in order to bilk them out of their money. And in his first great role, the inimitable Wilder incorporates both his perpetual smirk and his patented hysterical rants into a multilayered portrayal of a of a man who is at first cajoled and bullied into -- but finally embraces -- a crazy dream. To top it all off is the play itself, "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden," which stars Dick Shawn as a hepcat Hitler who grooves his way through the Great War. An over-the-top exercise in bad taste, it combines tap-dancing and goose-stepping with shameless glee. But let the viewer beware: the title song, "Springtime for Hitler," is a genuinely catchy tune that, once heard, is difficult to shake. This legendary comedy classic simply has to be seen to be believed. Gregory Baird

All Movie Guide

Theatrical producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) was once the toast of Broadway. Now he lives in his seedy office, cadging cash contributions from wealthy old ladies in exchange for sexual favors. Even worse, he's reduced to wearing a cardboard belt. Max's new accountant, Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), the soul of honesty, suggests that Max produce a hit to try to recoup his losses, but Max knows that it's too late for that. Offhandedly, Leo muses that, if Max found investors for a flop, he could legally keep all the extra money. Suddenly, Max's eyes light up -- and in that moment, Leo Bloom is gloriously corruptible. "I want everything I've ever seen in the movies!" cries Leo as Max embraces him. Together, Max and Leo conspire to select the worst play, the worst playwright, the worst director, and the worst actor to collaborate on their guaranteed flop. That play is Springtime for Hitler, "a delightful romp...with Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun." The playwright is Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars), an unreconstructed Nazi who, in drunken delirium, insists that Hitler was a better painter than Churchill -- "He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon, two coats!" The director is pompous transvestite Roger De Bris (Christopher Hewett), who is preparing to go to a costume party garbed as Marie Antoinette when Max and Leo come calling ("Max, Max, he's wearing a dress"). And the star, selected after extensive auditions, is hippie-freak Lorenzo St. DuBois (Dick Shawn) -- "L.S.D." for short.

At the end of several weeks, Max has sold 25,000 percent of the show; and, as a finishing touch, Max bribes the opening-night critics for a favorable review, knowing full well that such a gesture is the kiss of death. The curtains part, and Springtime for Hitler opens with perhaps the most tasteless production number in the history of films. At the end of this extravaganza, the audience sits in dumbfounded silence. Gleefully, Max and Leo repair to a corner bar to celebrate their failure. But then.... The first directorial effort of Mel Brooks, The Producers didn't do so well on its first release, but since that time it has taken its place as one of the all-time great movie comedies. Hal Erickson

Chicago Sun-Times

This is one of the funniest movies ever made. Roger Ebert

Product Details

• UPC: 027616902733
• Source: MGM (VIDEO & DVD)
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Pan & Scan, Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Français, Español
• Time: 1:30:00
• Sales Rank: 3,417

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