Classic Movie Review: The Producers

I've decided that from time to time, I'll share some of those films that made me love the seventh art. Good, solid movies. Recommended, in a word.

Title: The Producers
Year: 1968
Director: Mel Brooks
With: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars, Lee Meredith
Distributor: AVCO Embassy Pictures
Country of Origin: United States
English language
Rating: PG
Duration: 88 min.

Source: filmaffinity.com/us/filmimages.php?movie_id=912835

The Producers (1968) is my favorite of the Mel Brooks movies. It's followed, from afar, by Blazing Saddles (1974), the one about the black sheriff in a small racist town. And why from afar? Beyond the fact that it is a good movie, its premise only accounts for half, or perhaps two thirds, of its length, and from then on Brooks has to resort to things like breaking the fourth wall, putting the characters in a contemporary context, etc. It's as if he had run out of ideas and filled the gap with humorous situations of guaranteed effectiveness, but of lower quality. I´m not saying that Blazing Saddles is a bad movie, just not as good as The Producers.

The Producers stands out from the rest of Brooks' filmography due to the fact, not least, that it is not a parody. Young Frankenstein, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Dracula, High Anxiety, Spaceballs and the aforementioned Blazing Saddles are all parodies, as is the Get Smart series he created for TV with Buck Henry. Instead, this is a movie that doesn't parody any film or genre, but instead takes an original concept and pushes it to its ultimate conclusion.

Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is a down-and-out theater producer who survives by ripping off old ladies. One day he is visited by accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), who comments that, in order to get rich, Max would have to produce a play that is so bad that it will inevitably fail. Like some of the DCEU movies, but in a theatrical version, let's say. Normally, a bona fide producer would offer each investor a percentage of the profits, 10% or whatever, so that the total offered to all of them adds up to 100% or less. If you offered each of your investors a percentage of the profits in such a way that the sum of them ended up being more than 100%, for example, one 50%, another 30% and another 60%, you would inevitably end up losing money and in case of not paying, the most likely thing would be that he would end up with his bones in jail for being a fraudster. However, if the play were a resounding flop, the producer could have been left owing 8000% of the take, or whatever, but it wouldn't matter, since no investor could make any claim as it was a box office flop.

Source: filmaffinity.com/us/filmimages.php?movie_id=912835

That is the plan that Max and Leo hatch. And the first thing they do is look for a play so bad and offensive that it can't even last 24 hours on the bill. After hours of going through a vast pile of mediocre scripts, they find it: the play is called "Spring for Hitler" and is an apology for Nazism written by an exiled Nazi living in Queens. (Remember, The Producers was filmed just over 20 years after the end of World War II, so it would be like Brooks mocking the Twin Towers today.) With such a monstrosity, what could possibly go wrong?

The rest of the film is the chronicle of an announced success, the detailed account of all the little things that go wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it) and that will end up ruining the plans of these two rascals. We already imagine how it ends, but it doesn't matter, what is enjoyable is the whole journey from the first to the last minute, and it is a journey that is worth it, thanks to the enormous talents involved, especially Mostel and Wilder as the main characters in this farce.

A detail: they are barely 88 minutes, but there aren't even 30 seconds left. And there are things that will surely be out of place today, in these times of political correctness and LGBTQ and other acronyms, since there are exaggeratedly mannered gays, in the style of 60s Hollywood and there is a blonde receptionist who does not speak English and is only an object woman in the worst possible way. And let's not talk about the work itself, and the trivialization of the figure of Hitler, etc. Need I remember that Mel Brooks is Jewish?

Warning: I have to tell you about the existence of an awful remake, in this case, from the year 2005, starring Inspector Gadget and the girl from Kill Bill. Why the insistence on remaking perfect movies, instead of leaving them alone? See you in the next post.

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