The Producers

Starring: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars, Estelle Winwood, Christopher Hewett, Andreas Voutsinas, Lee Meredith, Renee Taylor
Directed by: Mel Brooks
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy, Musical
1968

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A producer (Zero Mostel) and his accountant (Gene Wilder) conspire to make vast amounts of money by producing a play that will be a guaranteed failure.

Review:

Tim: I went into Mel Brooks' The Producers truly wanting to love it. I was familiar with the premise and I'd watched the remake years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't love it. I couldn't even like it. I struggled so much with this film, and it's a bit perplexing. It's widely regarded as one of the great comedies of all time. It has an absolutely brilliant, hilarious premise. And yet, I think the movie is vastly overrated. It's decent, but just barely.

I think the biggest issue here is that people get caught up in the audacity of the idea. Brooks lands on a truly brilliant premise- a producer and his accountant decide to raise a million dollars to put on a Broadway show. If they produce a tremendous flop- a play so bad that it closes immediately, they won't be on the hook for any of the return on investment to their backers. They'll walk away rich. So, they set out to find the worst play of all time and put on the worst production ever. This is absolutely genius. Think of the comedy potential this idea creates. And, even funnier, they choose a play called "Springtime for Hitler". Already, I'm laughing at the sheer audacity of Brooks going in this direction. A play that celebrates Hitler and the NAZI regime, put on stage in the 1960s is hilarious. (Sadly, in 2025 this wouldn't even be remotely funny- how far we have fallen...). That's a brilliant idea for the worst play of all time. This whole thing is so brave, so unique, that you immediately fall in love with the premise.

The snag, though, is that the movie itself isn't that good. Our characters are given to histrionics. There's a lot of yelling throughout the film. The movie lacks any kind of subtly or nuance. It's too much- too loud, too over-the-top. This is Mel Brooks' directorial debut, and I don't think the film he crafted lived up to its potential. It's only 1 hour and 28 minutes and it still dragged in multiple places. I didn't have fun with the movie at all. I never cared about the characters and I rarely laughed at any of the gags. I loved the premise, but what I watched on screen felt like a massive letdown. The whole story is very obvious- it's abundantly clear where things are going, and it just moves along that expected path. For a film whose premise is so shocking, Brooks doesn't give us anything else to keep us on the edge of our seats.

Zero Mostel might have talent as an actor, but I felt his performance to be too much of a caricature. He tries to be larger-than-life, but ends up looking too ridiculous. There's no restraint in him and I don't think his performance was great. Sure, he's fine and he commits to the character, but I never cared about him and even more damning, I wasn't particularly interested in him, either. I love Gene Wilder, but I don't think he works well here. The idea of him playing this mild mannered accountant, given to anxiety attacks was a good idea, but his performance felt too cartoonish. Even in a comedy, his performance needed to feel more believable. So much of the film involves Mostel and Wilder going back-and-forth and I think their partnership brought out the worst of each other, rather than the best. I do love Wilder as an actor, but I felt like he was completely average in this film. I wasn't a fan of Kenneth Mars, either. His performance felt off-putting. I don't know, I saw what he did on screen, but I just didn't believe anything he did. It never felt realistic in any sense of the word. I know this is all a farce, but it's not a very enjoyable one. I recognize I'm in the minority here. Heck, I just denigrated Wilder's performance, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor! I just do not see it. This film did win 1 Academy Award, for Best Original Screenplay. I'm torn about this, because again, the concept is brilliant and hilarious. It's so brazen and unexpected, I tend to agree that Brooks should have been rewarded for coming up with such a unique concept. However, the movie fails to live up to that vision, and that's disappointing.

As you can see, I'm not a fan of The Producers. I did think the movie was decent- the premise is so great that it's nearly impossible to squander all of it. However, the technical details, the nuts and bolts of the film don't work nearly as well as they should. Maybe it was Brooks' inexperience, but I found this movie significantly less enjoyable than it should have been.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6.5



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