Legacy of ‘The Producers’ Lives On

“…Under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than he could with a hit — Leo Bloom, “The Producers.”

“The Producers,” the legendary musical comedy that opens at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center Sept. 5, had a circuitous route to Broadway almost 25 years ago. As the show’s creator, Mel Brooks. relates in his autobiography, “All About Me,” which came out in 2021, it was an idea that he first took up after the success of his sitcom, “Get Smart.” The series ran for five years on NBC and CBS starting in 1965.

The basic premise of the show, that a Broadway producer would intentionally create a show so bad it would not survive opening night was based, in part, on Brooks’ experience early in his career working for a New York producer, Benjamin Kutcher.

The idea that had been percolating in his mind for 20 years was about how the carefully constructed flop, designed to fleece the show backers of their investment, would, instead become a surprise hit.

He wrote it, originally as a three-act play with an audacious title for his comedy drama, as “Springtime for Hitler — A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.” Surely, so the story ran, no one would buy tickets for a show that was a comedy about one of history’s most brutal dictators, particularly, in a city like New York, with the memory of the Holocaust so fresh in the mind of so many people. He shopped it around to various producers, but only one, according to Brooks, was interested enough to talk about it.

The producer was Kermit Bloomgarden, who had originally produced Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and a string of other outstanding productions. The problem with the play, he told Brooks, is that the script was too complicated. He had written it for 35 characters in 35 sets which violated one of the unwritten rules of making money on Broadway: on set, five characters.

“It’s not a play,” Bloomgarden told Brooks. “What it is, is a movie. Write it as a screenplay and you’ve got a chance for success.”

Yet, in re-writing his play for Hollywood, he was stumped. He needed to write a big musical number for his play within a play, that was so bad, “it would send the first night theater flying out of the audience.” Who did he know who could do that?

His wife, the famous actress Anne Bancroft, suggested the obvious.

“You never stop singing around the house! And besides, you’re a born songwriter. No one else could write ‘Springtime for Hitler’ but you.”

And so, Brooks, who had developed his comedy writing skills in early television and had honed them in his network series, became a composer and lyricist. He didn’t know how to write a note of music, but he found someone who turned the melodies he sang into finished musical manuscripts.

Still, despite his success in broadcasting, none of the Hollywood studios were interested in a production that even breathed the name of the evil Nazi dictator.

But two independent producers, Joseph E. Levine. who also owned a chain of movie theaters, and Sidney Glazier took on the project, but with the stipulation that the original title, “Springtime for Hitler,” had to go.

The movie would be “The Producers,” by none other than Brooks himself, even thought he had not spent a day behind a motion picture camera. He got some practice directing a pair of TV commercials for Frito-Lay, before he stepped on the sound stage set for the first time.

He was blessed by a pair of stars, whose casting were seemingly a marriage made in heaven. For Max Bialystock, the seedy producer and force of nature, he chose Zero Mostel. He had originated the role of Tevye, the milkman, in “Fiddler On The Roof.” As a foil for Mostel, he chose Gene Wilder, a true comic genius who was just beginning to make waves in the New York theater. His fascinating story was a recent documentary offering at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

“The Producers” opened on March 18, 1968, at a small theater on West 58th Street in Manhattan. Word of mouth and a big boost from the comedian, Peter Sellers, created a demand for tickets that had an opening day line stretched around the block.

Brooks was launched on a career that created some of the best comedy productions in Hollywood’s recent history.

But it would be another 23 years before the production was turned into a surprise Broadway hit in 2001. It swept the Tony Awards that year, winning in 12 categories, the most honored show in Tony history.