The Producers

The Producers (1968)

Timing: 1:28 (88 min)

7.077/10
749

All about film

Video 2

Photo 28

Actors and characters

Release date

1968-03-18

Country

United States

Production

Crossbow Productions, Embassy Pictures Corporation

Genre

Comedy

Budget

$947 000

Revenue

$0

Website

Director

Mel Brooks

Actors

Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Estelle Winwood, Christopher Hewett, Kenneth Mars, Lee Meredith, Renée Taylor, Andréas Voutsinas, William Hickey, David Patch
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Mel Brooks

Producer

Sidney Glazier

Operator

Joseph F. Coffey

Composer

John Morris

Artist

Audition

Editing

Ralph Rosenblum, Robert Porter
All team (33)

• Dustin Hoffman was initially cast in one of the roles in the film, but he was then offered an audition for "The Graduate." Mel Brooks readily released the actor for the audition, as he was well aware of the film through his wife, Anne Bancroft (who had been cast as Mrs. Robinson), and understood that his chances of getting the role were very slim. However, Hoffman ultimately did not return to "The Producers."
• Producer Joseph E. Levine did not want to release the film, as he doubted its success, but he had no doubt at all about its bad taste. The film was saved thanks to the intervention of Peter Sellers.
• Outside of Broadway, Zero Mostel became famous for his production of "Ulysses in Nighttown." Leo Bloom naturally featured among the characters in the play. The character of Gene Wilder was also named Leo Bloom.
• Mel Brooks cannot read musical notation. All the songs he wrote for the film were initially hummed into a tape recorder by Brooks, and he then used the services of a specialist. When Brooks turned the film into a musical, he wrote all the music himself using the same method.
• The hysteria scene was filmed at the end of the shooting day, and exhausted Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman, 1933-2016) told Brooks that he was no longer able to work today. Brooks solved the problem by pumping the actor full of sugar and caffeine, after which the scene was filmed in just two takes.
• Due to its composition "Hitler's Spring," the film was initially banned in Germany, where laws prohibiting Nazi propaganda were in effect since the end of World War II. The film was shown in Germany only after it was included in the program of a film festival of works by Jewish directors.