Don't listen to him, he's crazy

Rating: 8/10 (8 April 2017)

In order to take advantage of a tax loophole, theater producer Max Bialystock(Mostel, flamboyant) and accountant Leo Bloom(Wilder, a nervous wreck) put on a play together that's sure to fail: Springtime For Hitler.
This is the only version I've watched. I've loved every Brooks-directed film that didn't have Dracula in it, meaning, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, History of the World: Part 1, Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. And, yes, this. You can tell it's his debut. Quality, and thus, laughs, range greatly over the course of it. It's really broad. And vulgar from frame 1. For the first several minutes, it feels as though it's (possibly unintentionally) meta. Like the movie itself wants to offend the audience, not entertain. Then it starts to come together. The material that's strong in the good way piles on. And honestly, even when I wasn't laughing, the effort is still there.
This has tons of great personalities. Everyone is on the verge of a complete breakdown, many for different reasons and in other directions than the others. Adolf himself is portrayed by a flower-child whose mind is just barely still there from all the acid. He remembers his name only because the initials are LSD. Do note that the first performance of the piece itself, which is almost the only place that has musical numbers, is two thirds through the running time. This mocks all aspects of show business, and of Nazism. The aesthetics, the idea to wage war, and, yes, the devoted supporters that it still had when this came out. And sadly, to this day. Nothing disarms like comedy. Any moment that imagery from The Third Reich(which, as you might not know, meant Germany) is shown, it is ridiculed. The person, the clothes, the sound accompanying, the reaction, *something*, about it is risible.
The DVD has trailers for this, and movies like it. OSS 117: Cairo: Nest of Spies, OSS 117: Lost in Rio, The Last Remake of Beau Geste, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Silent Movie, High Anxiety, To Be Or Not To Be and The Cannonball Run. And since it's from Scandinavia, the ones with Brooks involved is listed under an alternate title involving the words "Springtime For". It also has posters for this, and pictures from it. I recommend this to any fan of those involved in making it. 8/10