I am so confused. “The Producers” is on Broadway now? Is this some revival of an old play, or am I imagining things? And, did Mel Brooks write “The Producers” originally? Continuing, didn’t Brooks have a movie out about 10-15 yrs ago by the same name? (Let’s call this Movie “A”)
Lastly, even before “The Producers”, didn’t Mel Brooks have another movie (Mobie “B”) out about 10-15 years ago ALSO poking fun at Hitler? In this movie, he sings about conquering the world (a little piece of Poland, a little slice of Turkey, etc.) while kicking around a (balloon) globe at his whim. And, just to add to my confusion, IIRC, Mel Brooks was actually imitating some famous Charlie Chaplin scene of a similar nature - perhaps the original of what I’m calling Movie “B”? [Also, later in Movie “B”, there’s some running joke about Hitler and a pickle.]
Does anyone know all/parts of what the heck I’m thinking of???
Very confused!
Chronologically: the Charlie Chaplin movie was The Great Dictator, 1940. It included the famous balloon-globe scene.
Jack Benny starred in a movie called To Be or Not To Be (1942). This movie was about a Polish acting company escaping occupied Poland, and it also made fun of Hitler with a pickle joke.
Mel Brooks wrote and directed the movie The Producers in 1966. The play-within-the-movie (“Springtime for Hitler”) was intended by its (fictional) playwright to be a loving tribute to Hitler, but the theater-audience-within-the-movie found it to be a daring comedy.
Mel Brooks later directed and starred in a remake of the movie To Be or Not to Be in 1983. It included the pickle joke.
Finally, a couple of years ago, Mel Brooks wrote a Broadway version of The Producers, including writing the whole musical score, and it’s been a huge hit.
Mel makes a lot of jokes about Hitler, in many of his films.
You are actually thinking of a scene in the original film The Producers (1968). The scene in question is from the inset play “Springtime for Hitler”, and it’s actually Dick Shawn, (Lorenzo St. DuBois (L.S.D.)) that does that bit. In the film, Brooks only appears as one of the extras in the opening production number, and his line is “Don’t be dumb, be a smarty, come & join the Nazi party”. Or something like that.
Mel Brooks did indeed write it, originally as a film, and then it was adapted to the stage. I haven’t seen the stage show but understand it to be a pretty faithful adaptation.
Go rent it & watch it again. It’s his third funniest film (Blazing Saddles & Young Frankenstein being tied at #1 IMHO).
Very nice work, Baldwin. You laid that out beautifully.
The only thing I want to add is that the idea behind the Producers - that of a crooked producer who wants his play to fail because he’s sold 10,000% of it - is a very old Broadway joke. I believe that there was even a suggestion at one point that the Marx Brothers do a movie around the premise.
There is also “The Reducers,” the name of the current production of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, but that is a whole other - and very funny - joke.
Mel Brooks wrote the Producers as an original movie, which was released in 1968. It was not a play before that. Then, a few years ago, he adapted it for the Broadway stage, and it’s been running there since.
According to IMDB, “the Producers” was Brooks’s first major film work.
The Charlie Chaplin thing you’re referring to is probably “The Great Dictator”, a 1940 film that poked fun at the Nazis and Hitler specifically.
Baldwin, that’s a great chronology! Yes, it was “To Be or Not To Be” which I saw in theatres in 1983. People told me if I liked that movie so much, I should see the movie, “The Producers”.
Ok, but one more question: Was the Polish acting company gay in “To Be or Not To Be”, or am I confused again now? Might it be yet another Mel Brooks movie? One name which pops to mind may be “Victor, Victoria”, but some other name seems to be lurking in my vague memory…any ideas?
Brooks has often said that mocking Hitler is good comedy and takes the sting out of his crimes, or something like that. I’ve mixed feelings on that. Suspending disbelief towards these crimes is hollow at best. On the other hand, he does make a usable stock villian.
In the Brooks version of “To Be or Not to Be” (directed by Alan Johnson, BTW), Brooks was not gay; he was married to Anne Bancroft. (Of course we know such a pairing couldn’t happen in real life; that’s why it’s so funny. )
last weeks EW had a Mel Brooks interview RE the new DVD version of THE PRODUCERS. Apparently LSD is NOT in the stage musical. To Mel’s dismay, the character just did not work in that context (he was Mel’s favorite character also) so the Nazi author is cast as Hitler, breaks his leg before opening night & finally the gay transvestite does Hitler.]
Apparently next year the show will open… in Germany G
The running joke I remember from the original TO BE OR NOT TO BE went: “Napoleon became a pastry…Bismarck became a herring…and the Fuhrer will end up as a piece of cheese.”
Now, this may have dated a little…if you called someone a “piece of cheese” in the 1930s it was pretty well understood that you were calling him a schmuck, but today you’d get blank stares.
Did Brooks transform it into a pickle joke in 1983?
…Oh, there WAS a gay member of the Polish acting company in the remake, which made for the best Brooks-added joke:
Gestapo Officer: “All we want to do is rid the theater of Jews and homosexuals.”
Joseph Tura (Brooks): “Without Jews and homosexuals, there IS no theater!”
Cool! Anne Bancroft was always such a babe. Her and Mel is like the class clown winning the heart of the homecoming queen, and settling down to live happily ever after - giving hope to us class clowns everywhere.
THE PRODUCERS on Broadway is a suprisingly faithful adaptation of the movie, written by Brooks and Thomas Meehan, with some changes…SPOILERS!
Ulla has a MUCH larger part and a quite believable romantic subplot with Leo. She’s much more–uhm–fleshed out, clever, and helpful to the scheme.
Same with Carmen Ghia. Less creepy, more camp, sweeter-toned relationship with Roger.
As said before, Franz Liebkind becomes the star when he comes to the audition and "corrects” an auditioner’s rendition of ‘Have you ever heard the German band?’
It’s terrific and very much worth seeing in its own right. The movie doesn’t have to be seen to enjoy it, but you might as well watch it too since they’re two masterful takes on the same story. Which you see first doesn’t matter.
I see a lot of shows and honestly haven’t laughed so hard in years. It all just WORKS!
Oh, yeah, saw Mel and Anne in the audience two years ago at the Drama Dept’s THE TORCH BEARERS. It’s a teensy theater and I was sitting two rows behind him.
Oh yeah, Marian Seldes is a comic GODDESS! Her Mrs. J. Duro Pampinelli was unforgettable.
I hate to nitpick you, but when I first read this, the way you used the commas made it appear that Thomas Meehan had co-written the movie. Brooks wrote that by himself; Meehan co-wrote the musical.
Meehan is also the author of one of the great collections of humorous essays, Yma, Ava; Yma, Abba; Yma, Oona; Yma, Ida; Yma, Aga and Others, a book so obscure that it doesn’t even show up on Amazon. Yes, this is where Letterman got his infamous Uma, Oprah fiasco at the Oscars.
It was the buzz of Tony night 2001 when Brooks bounced up the podium time and again and didn’t manage to actually mention poor Meehan any time at all ;). But I agree, Meehan’s terrific.
I don’t have anything to add, really, I just hate for the board to have a Producers thread without me. I so love that film.
Just to add to the confusion about who is what and what is where regarding musicals and Nazis, in that almost final scene in Blazing Saddles, Actors portraying Nazis and dancers in a musical comedy ala Busby Berkley mix it up with the cowboys on the set of the musical.
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