This is the cult film having been remade in 2005 but this version from 1968 is still going strong, or rather strong anyway. Directed by Mel Brooks.
We meet Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) who is a failed Broadway producer, who tries to seduce elderly (to say the least) ladies to raise money for his next play.
He hires an accountant by the name of Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder and the character's name reminds us of James Joyce, n'est-ce pas?) who finds 2000 dollar being overcharged in the accounts of Bialystock's last play. Max had raised more money than he needed.
Now Bloom come up with the brilliant(?) idea to raise a lot of money, invest it in a worthless play that will close on the opening night.
They gather that noone will audit the books of a play having lost a lot of money and therefore they will be able to keep the surplus.
They start reading one play after another but they can't find anyone being interesting enough, until they stumble over "Springtime for Hitler...", written by a crazy (of course) former Nazi by the name of Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars). He has written this in all honesty and in love for "his Führer"!
The two accomplices persuade him to sign over the stage rights. This done by saying that they want to show the world the "true Hitler, with a song in his heart".
Now a hilarious audition time starts and the following staging becomes a smash hit of course and not at all the failure they were aiming at.
Liebkind thinks he has been betrayed (of course he has) and tries to blow up the theater in cooperation with the two others but of course they fail in this attempt too.
They are imprisoned and there they start all over again, staging another of Liebkind's plays, this time with the inmates as 'actors'.
It's a humourous story with a lot of clichés of course but most of them deliberately planted.
Mostel is grotesque, Wilder neurotic and Mars 'verrückt'!
Of course some jokes are perceived as somewhat dated but on the whole one can enjoy this film in 2012 as well as in 1968.
We meet Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) who is a failed Broadway producer, who tries to seduce elderly (to say the least) ladies to raise money for his next play.
He hires an accountant by the name of Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder and the character's name reminds us of James Joyce, n'est-ce pas?) who finds 2000 dollar being overcharged in the accounts of Bialystock's last play. Max had raised more money than he needed.
Now Bloom come up with the brilliant(?) idea to raise a lot of money, invest it in a worthless play that will close on the opening night.
They gather that noone will audit the books of a play having lost a lot of money and therefore they will be able to keep the surplus.
They start reading one play after another but they can't find anyone being interesting enough, until they stumble over "Springtime for Hitler...", written by a crazy (of course) former Nazi by the name of Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars). He has written this in all honesty and in love for "his Führer"!
The two accomplices persuade him to sign over the stage rights. This done by saying that they want to show the world the "true Hitler, with a song in his heart".
Now a hilarious audition time starts and the following staging becomes a smash hit of course and not at all the failure they were aiming at.
Liebkind thinks he has been betrayed (of course he has) and tries to blow up the theater in cooperation with the two others but of course they fail in this attempt too.
They are imprisoned and there they start all over again, staging another of Liebkind's plays, this time with the inmates as 'actors'.
It's a humourous story with a lot of clichés of course but most of them deliberately planted.
Mostel is grotesque, Wilder neurotic and Mars 'verrückt'!
Of course some jokes are perceived as somewhat dated but on the whole one can enjoy this film in 2012 as well as in 1968.
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