Review – The Producers

Though it’s been years since the last time I watched this, I can still do big chunks of the dialogue in my head. It’s that good, that memorable a movie. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are one of the greatest pairings in the history of comedy. Without Mostel’s completely over-the-top hamming as a crooked Broadway producer and Wilder’s understated performance as his nerdy accountant partner, this would never have worked as well as it did. The rest of the cast does a solid job as well. But the real blessing here is the sheer absurdity of the story, a tale of two men who decide to make a bundle of money by over-selling interests in a show that’s guaranteed to flop (and thus most likely no audit of the books). Who would ever have guessed that “Springtime for Hitler” would turn out to be a hit? To be sure, this is a product of its age. Several of the jokes hinge on heterosexism or just regular sexism. Still, this remains one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Buy the disc