Hitler appears in Blazing Saddles. In the studio commissary, an actor dressed as Hitler is talking to a friend, telling him his last day on the picture is when they shoot “the bunker scene.”
In the remake of TO BE OR NOT TO BE, it’s the same as the cheese joke, except Charles-Durning-as-Officer-Erhardt says “the Fuhrer is going to be a pickle… because he is such a sourpuss!” (Of course later Mel-Brooks-as-Josef-Bromski-as-Adolf-Hitler confronts Erhard as in the original “So, you’re the one who is making pickle jokes about me!”.)
Generally speaking, the Brooks/Bancroft TBONTB is funnier, but the Benny/Lombard is better.
(I’d love to see Bancroft and Brooks reunite on screen in the movie version of CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES as Ignatius’s mother and her boyfriend, but that’s another post.)
Thank you for your help with the pickle joke, but I can’t agree with you on the above.
The remake has too much damn MUGGING going on, especially from Brooks and Bancroft. The original is played straighter by the leads, which allows the comic performances by Sig Rumann (Colonel Ehrhardt) and others to sparkle. “Zo…they call me CONCENTRATION CAMP Ehrhardt, eh? Har har har!” “I THOUGHT you’d react like that.”
Also, Bancroft may have better looked the part of a not-so-great Polish actress, but Lombard just looked…well, you know. Hubba hubba. I’d drop three tons on dynamite on her anytime.
Oh, what I mean by “can’t agree” is that I’d argue the original is better AND funnier. Not that the remake isn’t worth seeing, of course.