Buzz
Many viewers took offense at The Producers, and they weren’t quiet about it. Shortly after the movie debuted, Mel Brooks found himself in a New York elevator where a woman recognized him and remarked, “Mr. Brooks, your film is downright crude.” Without missing a beat, he retorted, “Madam, it aimed even lower than that.” And it did. This bold, groundbreaking comedy fearlessly tackled every sensitive topic of the late 1960s—from LSD and cross-dressing to, yes, Adolf Hitler.
1. THE STORY WAS ROOTED IN REAL-LIFE BROADWAY SCHEMERS.
Reality can be as bizarre as fiction. At 16, Mel Brooks worked for a struggling theater producer who funded his shows by romancing wealthy, older women. “He’d charm these elderly ladies into supporting his plays,” Brooks shared with The Guardian. “They were thrilled by his attention and gladly handed over their money.” In New York, Brooks also encountered a duo of producers who thrived despite their string of failures. “They kept producing flops but lived lavishly,” Brooks recalled. “A publicist once told me, ‘If they ever had a hit, they’d be ruined—they’d owe too much to their backers!’ Combining these two experiences, I had my story—BANG!—just like that.”
2. A MAJOR STUDIO SUGGESTED SWAPPING HITLER FOR MUSSOLINI.
Originally, Brooks named his screenplay Springtime for Hitler, inspired by the fictional musical central to the story. Predictably, many studios rejected the controversial script. Universal showed some interest but proposed a significant change: Studio head Lew Wasserman suggested, “Why not use Mussolini instead? Springtime for Mussolini. He’s less controversial.” Brooks responded, “Lew, you’re missing the point.” Eventually, Joseph E. Levine of Embassy Pictures took on the project, agreeing to keep Hitler but insisting on a title change. Thus, the film became The Producers.
3. ZERO MOSTEL’S WIFE PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN HIS CASTING.
Zero Mostel was Brooks’s first choice for Max Bialystock. A beloved stage actor with Tony Awards for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, Mostel initially declined the role. Determined, Brooks approached Mostel’s wife, Kate, who read the script and declared, “It’s brilliant. I’ll make sure Zero agrees to do it.”
A week later, Brooks received the call he’d been hoping for. “You got me, I’ll do it,” Mostel said. “My wife convinced me.”
4. GENE WILDER’S ANXIETY WAS CALMED BY MOSTEL’S UNEXPECTED GESTURE.
Leo Bloom, Bialystock’s timid accomplice, is an insecure accountant. Brooks envisioned Gene Wilder—whom he called a “perfect victim”—for the role. However, he needed Mostel’s approval before finalizing the casting. The two actors had to meet first, which left Wilder, then relatively unknown, feeling extremely anxious about performing alongside a Broadway legend.
On the day of their meeting, Wilder arrived at producer Sidney Glazier’s office to find Brooks and Mostel waiting. Mostel stood up and approached him. “This larger-than-life figure came gliding toward me,” Wilder recalled in his 2005 memoir. “My heart was racing so fast I thought he’d hear it. I extended my hand for a handshake, but instead, Zero pulled me close and planted a big kiss on my lips. All my nervousness vanished in an instant.”
5. A NOD TO FRANZ KAFKA APPEARS IN THE FILM.
The reference surfaces during Max and Leo’s search for the worst play ever written. As they sift through piles of scripts, Max picks one up and reads the opening line: “Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to discover he had turned into a giant cockroach.” After a brief pause, he remarks, “It’s too good.” This is a clever nod to Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, which begins with a similar line: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” Close enough for a laugh.
6. KENNETH MARS WORE HIS COSTUME TO BED.
To make his fellow actors genuinely uneasy around his character, Kenneth Mars, who portrayed Franz Liebkind—the clumsy ex-Nazi playwright behind Springtime for Hitler—took his costume home and slept in it nightly, never washing it. “I wasn’t exactly fragrant,” Mars confessed.
7. WILDER’S DOG INSPIRED HIS PERFORMANCE.
In one of the film’s early scenes, Max takes Leo’s cherished blue blanket, prompting the accountant to erupt into a furious tantrum. Reflecting on this iconic moment in a 2002 DVD documentary, Wilder revealed his thought process. “I had a small dog at the time, and I felt deeply connected to her,” he explained. To make his reaction more authentic, Wilder imagined Mostel had taken his dog instead of the blanket. “I began to lose it,” he admitted. “I was genuinely upset because, in my mind, Zero had grabbed my dog, and I didn’t know what he might do to her.”
8. THE FILM IS CREDITED WITH POPULARIZING THE TERM “CREATIVE ACCOUNTING.”
If you’ve ever studied business ethics, you’re likely familiar with this idea. Creative accounting refers to the (legal) practice of interpreting financial regulations in unconventional ways, often exploiting loopholes. Film critic David Ehrenstein claimed the term originated from a memorable line in The Producers: Before Leo unveils his scheme to Max, he declares, “It’s simply a matter of creative accounting.”
9. BROOKS’S VOICE MAKES A CAMEO IN THE “SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER” SONG.
While Brooks didn’t appear on-screen in The Producers, his voice made a subtle appearance. At the 1:20 mark in the clip above, a chorus member shouts, “Don’t be stupid, be a smarty! Come and join the Nazi party!” Dissatisfied with the actor’s delivery, Brooks dubbed over it himself, adding a slight New York twang to the line.
10. PETER SELLERS PLAYED A ROLE IN ITS PROMOTION.
Before Gene Wilder was cast, Brooks approached Peter Sellers for the role of Leo Bloom. Though Sellers declined (reportedly because he was too preoccupied shopping at Bloomingdale’s to fully consider the offer), he became a vocal supporter of the film. While working on I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! in Los Angeles, Sellers organized a weekly movie night with friends. When their planned screening of Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni fell through, they opted to watch The Producers instead.
Sellers was captivated by every moment of the film. After it ended, he phoned Levine at 2 a.m. to praise it, only to learn that The Producers was struggling. Following a poor test screening in Philadelphia, Embassy Pictures considered shelving it. Fortunately, Sellers persuaded the studio to release it widely and even funded full-page ads in Variety and The New York Times to promote it further.
11. IT TRIUMPHED OVER STIFF COMPETITION AT THE OSCARS.
Thanks largely to Sellers’s support, The Producers became a success. Positive word of mouth propelled the film, earning it two Oscar nominations in 1969: Best Supporting Actor for Wilder and Best Original Screenplay for Brooks. Brooks faced tough competition, including Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a landmark in sci-fi cinema. Despite this, The Producers emerged victorious, winning the award.
12. BROOKS RESPONDED PERSONALLY TO EVERY JEWISH LEADER WHO CRITICIZED THE FILM.
Brooks has stated that one of his lifelong missions is “to make the world laugh at Adolf Hitler.” For him, The Producers was a form of comedic revenge. “The only way I could truly retaliate against Hitler was to mock him,” Brooks explained. However, some viewers believed the film glorified Hitler, prompting Brooks to address their concerns directly.
When The New York Times critic Renata Adler watched The Producers during its initial release, she criticized the film for setting a dangerous precedent. “Next, we’ll probably see musicals about cancer, Hiroshima, and deformities,” Adler remarked in her review.
Additionally, as Brooks himself recalled, “Jewish groups were initially furious. They didn’t understand the humor.” Shortly after the film’s debut, Brooks received scathing letters from what he estimated to be “every Rabbi in New York.” To his credit, he addressed each one personally. “I responded to every letter, explaining, ‘You can’t confront Hitler with seriousness. You have to mock him.’”
