The Producers is a 1968 feature length comedy film set in New York City in which two con-men attempt to cheat theatre "angels" (investors) out of their investment money. Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is a failed, aging Broadway producer who meets up with accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder). It was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2001.
Their plan is to oversell shares in a show and then go bankrupt and keep all the unspent funds. They set out to purposely make a flop, so that no one will ever audit the flop's books. Springtime for Hitler, a musical comedy about Adolf Hitler, is the result. Unfortunately for the con artists, the Broadway musical is misinterpreted as an over the top satire on Nazism and becomes a hit. Franz Liebkind (the writer, played by Kenneth Mars), who really believed they were producing a tribute to Hitler, is insulted by the audience's laughter. He and the producers bomb the theatre to end the production. The producers see it as a final — yet futile — plan to reap their ill-gotten gains. However, the producers end up in prison where they cast a new show amongst the prisoners.
The movie was written and directed by Mel Brooks.
It won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Wilder). The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
The movie was adapted as a Broadway musical by Mel Brooks in 2001. Its first run starred Nathan Lane (who reprised that role during the show's first run on London's West End) and Matthew Broderick and won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. Although the musical has many scenes and jokes taken directly from the film, there are still many differences. Ulla has a much larger role, as does the musical within the musical's director Roger DeBris. The character Lorenzo S. Dubois (LSD) does not appear in the musical. Overall the musical is much more upbeat and ends more happily with the two producers becoming successful after being released from jail.
A film based on the musical has been announced and set for a 2005 release. The lead actors will be the same, with the exception of Will Ferrell as Franz and Uma Thurman as Ulla.
Quotations
From Mel Brooks' interview:
- "I was never crazy about Hitler... If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win... That's what they do so well; they seduce people. But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can't win. You show how crazy they are."
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