The Producers (1968) on Netflix
Max Bialystock, a Broadway producer, and Leo Bloom, the accountant auditing his books, plan to oversell shares in a musical built to fail. They pick a stage tribute to Adolf Hitler.
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- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.5/1064,541 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Max Bialystock once had hits on Broadway and now scrapes by, taking money from wealthy older women for a play he may never stage. Leopold Bloom, a jittery young accountant, comes to his office to go over the books and turns up a $2,000 discrepancy; Max talks him into hiding it. From the numbers, Leo sees that a producer who oversells shares in a show that fails can keep the surplus, because backers of a flop do not expect a return. A hit would expose the fraud, so Max proposes staging the worst musical they can find and then fleeing to Rio de Janeiro. They choose Franz Liebkind's script Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Producers (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dustin Hoffman was originally cast as Franz Liebkind, but the night before shooting began he begged Mel Brooks to release him so he could audition for The Graduate. Hoffman won the role of Ben Braddock, and Brooks replaced him with Kenneth Mars.
- After the film was finished, Embassy Pictures executives refused to release it as being in "bad taste"; its Pittsburgh premiere was a disaster and the studio considered shelving it, until Peter Sellers placed an advertisement in Variety backing a wide release.
- Max Bialystock was based on Benjamin Kutcher, a New York producer Brooks met early in his career who financed his plays by sleeping with elderly women; the swindle plot came from two producers who lived lavishly while making unsuccessful plays.
- Zero Mostel's leg injury from a 1960 bus accident put a clause in his contract dismissing him from work after 5:30 pm. Filming the last scene at Lincoln Center's Revson Fountain, he threw a fit and gave up; producer Sidney Glazier rushed from a dentist's appointment and the scene was shot all night.
- Peter Sellers accepted an invitation to play Leo Bloom and then never contacted Mel Brooks again, so Brooks turned to Gene Wilder, who was about to make his film debut in Bonnie and Clyde.
- For its Swedish release the film was titled after the play within it, Springtime for Hitler. Because it did well, most of Mel Brooks's later films were given similar Swedish titles despite being unrelated, among them Springtime for Mother-In-Law and Springtime for the Slum.
- Major film studios and independent filmmakers rejected Brooks's 30-page Springtime for Hitler treatment as outrageous and tasteless; some said they would consider the script only if he changed it to Springtime for Mussolini.
