Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder prepare for quite a flop in THE PRODUCERS
THE PRODUCERS (Mel Brooks, 1968)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Sunday, September 2, 2:00 & 6:50
Series runs through September 17
212-415-5500
www.bam.org
No way around it; this is one funny movie. Written and directed by Mel Brooks (who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay), The Producers stars Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, a once great Broadway producer now relegated to wooing old ladies for their checkbooks. Gene Wilder earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor as Leo Bloom, a by-the-book accountant who figures out that it could be possible to make more money from a bomb than a hit. And the bomb they turn to is the extraordinary Springtime for Hitler, featuring a great turn by Kenneth Mars as a neo-Nazi. Brooks, Mostel, Wilder, Mars, and the rest of the crazy cast — which also includes Dick Shawn, Lee Meredith, Estelle Winwood, Christopher Hewett, Renee Taylor, Barney Martin, Bill Macy, and William Hickey — don’t just play it for laughs but for giant guffaws and jaw-dropping disbelief in this riotous romp that was turned into a very good but overrated Broadway musical and a terrible film version of the show, both starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, neither of whom can fill Mostel and Wilder’s shoes. The Producers is screening September 2 in the BAMcinématek series “American Gagsters: Great Comedy Teams,” which runs through September 17 and comprises some fifty films, including such other Brooks classics as Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein on September 3, followed by a fab bunch of hysterical Steve Martin and Woody Allen movies.