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The Producers

Director: Mel Brooks (Dir) Release Date: 1967 Premiere Information: Pittsburgh opening: 22 Nov 1967 Duration (in mins): 88			Print this page Display Movie Summary

Cast:	Zero Mostel	(Max Bialystock)
	Gene Wilder	(Leo Bloom)
	Dick Shawn	(Lorenzo St. Du Bois)
	Kenneth Mars	(Franz Liebkind)
	Estelle Winwood	("Hold me, touch me" old lady)
	Christopher Hewett	(Roger De Bris)
	Andreas Voutsinas	(Carmen Giya)
	Lee Meredith	(Ulla)
	Renee Taylor	(Eva Braun)
	Michael Davis	(Production tenor)
	John Zoller	("New York Times" critic)
	Madlyn Cates	(Woman at window)
	Frank Campanella	(Bartender)
	Arthur Rubin
	Zale Kessler
	Bernie Allen
	Rusty Blitz
	Anthony Gardell	(Auditioning Hitlers)
	Mary Love
	Amelie Barleon
	Nell Harrison
	Elsie Kirk	(Old ladies)
	Barney Martin	(German officer in play)
	Diana Eden	(Showgirl)
	Tucker Smith
	David Evans	(Lead dancers)
	Josip Elic	(Violinist)
	William Hickey	(Drunk in theater bar)

Summary:

Max Bialystock is a seedy, disreputable, has-been Broadway producer who ekes out a living by charming love-starved little old ladies into investing in his disastrous productions. One day a timorous and neurotic accountant, Leo Bloom, arrives at Max's office to check the books on his latest theatrical fiasco. He finds a $2,000 difference in the books and naively mentions that a producer could make a killing by finding a sure-fire flop, over-financing it, and then pocketing the remainder of the investors' money after the show closes. Max becomes wildly excited and cons the reluctant Bloom into becoming his partner in producing the worst play in theatrical history. After rejecting hundreds of manuscripts, they finally find the ideal script in Springtime for Hitler , a musical comedy about Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun romping in Berchtesgaden, written by Franz Liebkind, an unregenerate Nazi who keeps pigeons and staunchly maintains that Hitler was "a swell guy with a song in his heart." After oversubscribing by 25,000%, Max and Bloom insure disaster by hiring Roger De Bris, a flagrant transvestite generally regarded as the world's worst director, to stage their play, and Lorenzo St. Du Bois, a mind-blown hippie known as LSD, to play the young Führer who danced his way to glory. On opening night, they add a final touch to their scheme by wrapping a $100 bribe around the ticket of the drama critic from the New York Times. But the play and production are so unremittingly awful that the audience interprets it as a gigantic put-on and roars with approval. Stunned to discover they are stuck with a smash hit, Max, Bloom, and Liebkind frantically try to close their show, even to the point of blowing up the theater. Apprehended and sent to jail after a trial in which they are found "incredibly guilty," they soon revert to their former tactics by producing a prison show called Prisoners of Love and selling shares--well over 100%--to their fellow inmates and the warden.

Production Company:	Crossbow Productions
	Sidney Glazier
	Springtime Productions
Production Text:	A Sidney Glazier Production
Distribution Company:	Embassy Pictures Corp.
Director:	Mel Brooks	(Dir)
	Michael Hertzberg	(Asst dir)
	Martin Danzig	(Asst dir)
Producer:	Joseph E. Levine	(Pres)
	Sidney Glazier	(Prod)
	Jack Grossberg	(Assoc prod)
Writer:	Mel Brooks	(Scr)
Photography:	Joseph Coffey	(Dir of photog)
Art Direction:	Charles Rosen	(Art dir)
Film Editor:	Ralph Rosenblum	(Film ed)
Set Decoration:	James Dalton	(Set dec)
Costumes:	Gene Coffin	(Cost)
Music:	John Morris	(Mus comp & cond)
	Felix Giglio	(Mus supv)
Sound:	Alan Heim	(Sd)
Dance:	Alan Johnson	(Choreog)
Make Up:	Irving Buchman	(Makeup)
Production Misc:	Robert Porter	(Prod supv)
	Louis A. Stroller	(Unit mgr)
Country:	United States

Songs:	"Love Power," music and lyrics by Norman Blagman and Herb Hartig; sung by Dick Shawn; "Springtime for Hitler," music and lyrics by Mel Brooks; sung by Michael Davis; "Prisoners of Love," music and lyrics by Mel Brooks; sung by Zero Mostel; "The Producers," words and music by John Morris and Mort Goode.
Composer:	Norman Blagman
	Mel Brooks
	Mort Goode
	Herb Hartig
	John Morris

Physical Properties:	col:	PathéColor
	Sd:


Genre:	Comedy
Sub-Genre:	with songs

Subjects (Major):	Accountants
	Actors and actresses
	Eva Braun
	Convicts
	Critics
	Embezzlement
	Fraud
	Hippies
	Adolf Hitler
	Nazis
	New York City--Broadway
	Playwrights
	Prisons
	Theater
	Theatrical backers
	Theatrical directors
	Theatrical producers
	Transvestites

Note:	Location scenes filmed in New York City. Writer-director Mel Brooks reworked The Producers as a theatrical musical, which opened on Broadway on 19 Apr 2001. The hit show featured music and lyrics by Brooks, with the book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan. In 2005, Universal released a film version of the musical play, also entitled The Producers . Directed by Susan Stroman, the 2005 film featured Nathan Lane as "Max Bialystock" and Matthew Broderick as "Leo Bloom," the roles they played in the original Broadway run.

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The American Film Institute is grateful to Sir Paul Getty KBE and the Sir Paul Getty KBE Estate for their dedication to the art of the moving image and their support for the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and without whose support AFI would not have been able to achieve this historical landmark in this epic scholarly endeavor.



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