Don't you see, it's so simple....

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2002)

"The Producers" is Mel Brooks' first film - it is also his most original, the only one to win him and Oscar (for Best Screenplay), and to many (myself included), his best. There are certain filmmakers who seem to create their own sort of film with a different style than anyone else (people like Woody Allen or Wes Anderson, for instance), and Brooks is one of these. There isn't anything else that has the ribald, comedic, sarcastic, and overly theatrical tone of a good Mel Brooks film.
This is, in such a sense, Brooks' master work - the film is imbued with a natural theatricality in the way each character is seemingly caricaturized, and the presence of Broadway favorite Zero Mostel in the leading role just adds to the effect.
The movie is of course, about a play - a work entitled "Springtime for Hitler" (a spring with Hitler and his lover Eva, showing the Fuhrer's lighter side), which ought to tell you everything you need to know about the sense of humor necessary to enjoy such a movie. The movie is full of blatantly (and purposely) tasteless humor - Bialystock (Mostel), a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer, raises funds by wooing little old ladies whom he refers to with such names as "Hold Me, Touch Me". His partner, Bloom (Gene Wilder), is pretty much a full-blown wimp who still carries around a "blue blankie", and together they make quite a pair.
The rest of the cast fills out nicely - Kenneth Mars as the yammering German Franz Liebchen, full of love for "you-know-who" and no grip whatsoever on reality, Christopher Hewitt as the flambloyant director Roger DeBris, Lee Meredith as Ulla, the secretary who speaks no English, Dick Shawn as Lorenzo Saint-DuBois (or, as his friends call him, L.S.D.), an hippie actor who ends up playing Hitler, and excellent cameos from the likes of Estelle Winwood and Burgess Meredith.
It would be amiss to talk about this film now and not mention the current hit show actually on Broadway. The play is, to be honest, probably a bit better. The majority of the best one-liners and scenes remain, but the play fits even better into Brooks' theatrical, over-the-top stylings (indeed, at times the play goes so far over the top as to not be in the same atmosphere as normal entertainment, such as the character of Carmen Ghia in the play). The Broadway adaptation features a slightly different storyline and drops the character of L.S.D. altogether, but it comes out as a more entertaining production than the film. That said, and with apologies to Matthew Broderick and (especially the excellent) Nathan Lane, Mostel and Wilder play these characters better than their newer counterparts, so there is a bit of a balance.
The film itself stand alone, and is definitely worth seeing, not only for the greatest musical number ever to grace film stock (also named "Springtime for Hitler), but for the entertaining feel and pace of the film.