The Producers: Tap dancing storm troopers, oh my!

Rating: 7/10 (27 November 2017)

Mel Brooks is a curious person in the film industry, he started out big with such films like Blazing Saddles (1974) and The Producers (1967) then tumbled down until Dracula: Dead and loving it (1995) where he stopped making films all together. On one hand most people remember him to be a comedic marvel with razor sharp satire while on the other hand people remember his work to have some.....outdated comedy that hurts otherwise great movies. Let's find out!
Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is a washed up playwright who is struggling to make ends meet, he has not had a profitable play for a long time and fears he might not last long. When a mousy accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) inadvertently mentions a way to scam people, Max enlists Leo to create an intentional flop to scam the investors. Thus Springtime for Hitler: A Gay romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden by mad ex Nazi Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars ) is made.
Hilarity ensues.
To not mention the famous Springtime for Hitler number would be wrong, it is amazing, and such a delightful middle finger to Hitler and Nazis in general, the music is catchy as well. I was humming it for a good few days with a big silly grin on my face. I love how that number takes Nazi propaganda and mocks the hell out of it and shows just how stupid it all is when you boil propaganda down to its most basic and honest level, I love it.
The comedy is great all round for the most part and the performances for the most part are really good, the timing is on point and, again for the most part are characters and not one note clowns that exist only to make us laugh.
There is a reoccurring problem with the Mel Brooks movies, at least with this and Blazing Saddles is that there is a period of time where all the comedy just dies. In this case it is with the gay characters, they are the only characters that not three dimensional people but just the camp gay stereotypes that are relying on being gay camp stereotypes. It is not funny. In any way whatever, I have seen more offensive variations on this stereotypes, it is just boring and annoying. It brings the entire movie down for a time.
However the movie does recover from this and the stereotypes never come up again in any major way. The film benefits from this as that period has aged so badly and does the movie a massive disservice. The movie's real straight lies in the satire and the two main leads which Mel Brooks does well.
The trouble with reviewing any good comedy is there is very little margin for spoilers, so much of what is good about it is can be considered a spoiler so I will end this review now.
This is a very good comedy, not for everyone and some of it has not aged well at all but there is a wit and intelligence to this that makes it very watchable.
I would recommend it.