#5 on my Top Ten Film list

While coming up with the first five was a snap, (to recap: Seven Samurai, Dr. Strangelove, Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, and this 'un below, The Producers) I've got a list on my hard drive of about, no joke, twenty other movies duking it out for the next five. I've spent the past few months going over them in my head trying to narrow down the criteria I'd let a film onto my list. So far, my personal judgement for these films is: "I can sit down and watch it any time and it'll still hold my attention" and "I get something new out of it every time I watch it" as well as "It's entertaining" and "It's well written" and even "It's beautifully shot". Later, I should make a list of some of the also-rans; the films that I like but aren't going to make the list for whatever reason.

For instance, all the films of Jean Renoir ("WRENWAAAIR!")that I've seen are damn fine, but I'm gonna have to see Rules of The Game again pretty soon to decide. Also, I've noticed that as I get older, my tastes change. (Wow! You too? Do you like pizza, also?) Like, sci-fi action films like "The Matrix" and "Aliens" may have made the list before, but now I'd put 'em on the 'also-ran' category. And that's a topic for further discussion. So, here we go...






5)The Producers- This is, by far, the funniest comedy I've ever seen. It's funny because the premise is so good; a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer and a schulb accountant team up to produce a musical so deliberately awful that it closes on opening night. The rationale for this is that if the producer can oversell the shares in the play and make money on the front end, a flop will entitle him to not pay off his backers. My understanding is that writer/director Mel Brooks actually worked with a producer who did this, albeit on a smaller scale. On a personal note, I myself was involved in a company which kept sucking money from investors for years, and never put anything out while I was there. My pet name for it was "Bialystock and Bloom, Video Game Producers". So it's not as far-fetched a premise as you'd think.

Zero Mostel plays the washed-up producer, Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder plays Leo Bloom, the mousy accountant. While Mostel mugs up his role a bit, (Hell, it's Zero Mostel, when does he NOT mug?) they're both perfectly cast. It's because they're both so fundamentally good-hearted that it's a pleasure seeing Bialystock play Memphisto to poor Leo's Faust. Note how they both disgustedly spit in the trash can after throwing the Nazi armbands the deranged playwright Franz Leibkind (Kenneth Mars-where'd HE go?) makes them wear after they
get his approval to sign his play.

Actually, Leo and Max, for all their flaws, are the most stable people in the cast. You've got the psycho Nazi playwright Franz; was there any doubt he'd come after Leo and Max with murder in his heart after seeing what they did to his play? ("Vas ist dis 'baby'! Hitler neffer zaid, 'baby'!). Then you've got the so-flaming-he's-plasma-gay director, Roger Du Bris (Christopher Hewitt). Though it was filmed at a time where you'd take gross homosexual stereotypes like this as a matter of course, Brooks' take on it isn't mean-spirited:

Max Bialystock: Roger, did you have a chance to read "Springtime for Hitler?"

Roger De Bris: [emerges from behind a partition wearing a dress] Remarkable, remarkable! A stunning piece of work.

Leo Bloom: [under his breath] Max... he's wearing a dress.

Max Bialystock: No kidding.

Roger De Bris: Did you know, I never knew that the Third Reich meant Germany. I mean it's just drenched with historical goodies like that... Oh dear, you're staring at my dress. I should explain. We are going to the choreographer's ball tonight and there's a prize for the best costume.

Carmen Giya: And we always win!

Roger De Bris: I don't know about tonight. I'm supposed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but I think I look more like Tugboat Annie. What do you think, Mr. Bloom?

Leo Bloom: ...Where do you keep your wallet?

Oh, let's not forget the drugged-out, over-the-hill hippy, L.S.D. (Dick Shawn- and where'd HE go?) Though, to

be honest, Brooks and Shawn's take on 'hippies' isn't as on the nose as say, Broadway producers. It's more like 'Laugh-in's' take on hippies. Still, he steals the show (in more ways than one) starting with his silly song for his audition:

Lorenzo St. DuBois: [singing] And I give a flower to the big fat cop / He takes his club and he beats me up / I give a flower to the garbage man / He stuffs my girl in the garbage can / And I give it to the landlord when the rent comes 'round / He throws it in the toilet and he flush it down / It goes into the sewer / With the yuck runnin' through 'er / And it runs into the river that we drink / Hey, world, YOU STINK!

Groove-ey, maaa-aan.

Anyway, what happens is that in Max and Leo's quest to produce the worst play ever, they inadvertently create a smash comedy that is destined to run on Broadway for a long time, or at least until the various legal teams involved shut it down. ("Where did we go right?" asks a forlorn Max) After an aborted attempt to blow up the theater running the play, ("Don't shoot the dynamite!" exclaims Max. "It might get mad and blow up at us!") our heros end the film in prison, selling 1000% of the shares to their new production, "Prisoners of Love".

While I'm here, I may as well comment on the film version of the musical, starring Nathan Lane as Max and Matthew Broderick as Leo. Not bad, not outstanding. It does clear up some of the inconsistencies of the original. For instance, people who walked out of "Springtime for Hitler" in the first half wouldn't come back for the second part. Getting rid of the 'L.S.D.' character was probably a good idea too, in retrospect. (He does date the first film.) My only real complaint is that like most musicals, they stop the story to perform the musical number, than start up the story again without adding onto it. Also, this is just me, but Uma Thruman's getting a little long in the tooth to play ingenues...