Springtime for Brooks (and Mostel and Wilder)

Given that hindsight is 20/20, it seems natural now to look at the 1968 Mel Brooks film The Producers and think, “Well, this movie was obviously the perfect basis for a hit Broadway musical.” Of course, the reality is that many wags had their doubts when just such a project was announced. Although I personally felt that the property was ripe for stage musicalization in terms of its humor and style, I wondered how two of the movie’s most famous sight gags could be translated to the stage — namely, the Busby Berkeley-like, overhead shot of the Springtime for Hitler dancers forming a rotating swastika and the on screen audience’s dumbfounded reaction to that show within the movie. Also, I wondered if the show would hold a candle to the film in terms of casting.

Needless to say, the Broadway version of The Producers with music and lyrics by Brooks, book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan, and direction and choreography by Susan Stroman, turned out to be one of the biggest hits in the history of the theater. The effect of the overhead shot mentioned above is brilliantly aped on stage through the hoisting and tilting of a huge, mirrored panel, while the audience reaction joke is simply left out. (With everything else that’s going on in the show at that point, it’s barely missed.) If the many new numbers written for the musical by Brooks are unlikely to become standards of the Great American Songbook, they are unfailingly entertaining and perfectly slotted within the story. And if the filmed performances of Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom will never be equaled, let alone surpassed, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (and their replacements, Brad Oscar and Steven Weber) have given us stage incarnations of these characters that are entirely successful on their own terms.

Although I’ve looked at the movie several times since the Broadway version opened, it wasn’t until my viewing of MGM’s new DVD transfer of The Producers that I noticed something fascinating. Like the stage musical, the film makes fun of just about everyone — old ladies, gays, actors, etc. The one exception is blacks: The late ’60s were a volatile period in the civil rights movement, Lord knows, and even Brooks shied away from humor that might in any way have been considered racist at the time. Nowadays, this is not a problem. Among the many outrageously funny stereotypes contained in the Broadway Producers is a black colleague of accountant Leo Bloom who laments his lot by singing “Oh I debits all duh mornin’ an’ I credits all dub eb’nin” — the kind of humor that might have ended Brooks’s career if he had tried to include it in the movie.

Longtime fans of the film may notice, as I did, a strange edit in the DVD version. You’ll remember the scene where Max and Leo, having come to the home of talent-free director Roger De Bris to talk him into directing Springtime for Hitler and thereby assure the show’s failure, are ushered into an impossibly narrow, claustrophobic elevator by De Bris’ ultra-gay “private secretary” Carmen Ghia (Andreas Voutsinas). As this sequence originally existed in the film, Carmen becomes visually and audibly excited by having his body pressed up against Max and Leo in the elevator; but in every print of The Producers that I’ve seen over the past several years — in revival houses, on laserdisc, and now on DVD — Voutsinas’s writhing and gasping and shrieking has been cut. (Possibly Brooks himself made the edit because he felt that the scene as filmed didn’t jibe with post-gay liberation sensibilities — but it’s hard to imagine that this was the reason, given some of the other things that happen in the movie!)

The DVD transfer is visually superb, but the audio presentation brings up an interesting technical point (for those who are interested in such things). The music on the soundtrack album of the film — originally released on vinyl by RCA and now available on CD from Razor & Tie — is in full stereo, indicating that the entire score was recorded that way. But The Producers was released to theaters at a time when only prints of major road show pictures had stereo soundtracks. Since the original session tapes have presumably been lost, most of the film as heard on the DVD is in re-channeled mono — with a couple of major exceptions.

MGM seems to have taken the stereo audio for the “Springtime for Hitler” number from the master tapes for the soundtrack album and slotted it into the film. The problem is that the stereo version includes no sound effects, and it’s disconcerting to see those Nazi storm troopers silently tap-dancing their little hearts out; fortunately, you can go to the DVD menu and choose to listen to the movie in “English mono” rather than 5.1 surround if you want to hear the taps and other foley effects. (Good news: The entire “seduction” sequence of the film, during which Max talks Leo into becoming his partner in theatrical crime, is heard on the DVD with stereo music plus sound effects — because that’s the way it appears on the soundtrack album. The climax of this sequence, with the Lincoln Center fountain bursting into action as Leo joyously succumbs to Max’s blandishments, remains one of the film’s classic moments and one that could probably never be effectively recreated on stage.)

Aside from the movie itself, offered in both widescreen standards formats, the DVD has extras including an outtake in which the drunk character played by Bill Hickey unwittingly detonates the explosives that blow up the theater where Springtime for Hitler is playing, plus trailers for the film and photo and sketch galleries. The best of the bonus features is a new documentary on the making of the film that incorporates interviews with Brooks and all of the surviving principal cast members: Wilder, Voutsinas, Kenneth Mars (Franz Liebkind), and Lee Meredith (Ulla). Mostel is deceased, as are Christopher Hewett (De Bris) and Estelle Winwood (the “Hold Me, Touch Me” lady). Also no longer with us is Dick Shawn, who played L.S.D., a tiresome character wisely cut from the stage musical. Brooks, by the way, has kind words in his interview for the film’s producer, Sidney Glazier, who died just a few days ago (December 14) at age 86.

One final note: Among the disc’s bonuses, you will find something on the menu labeled “Soundtrack Spot.” I couldn’t imagine what this might be, so I accessed the feature — and found it to be a commercial for the cast album of the Broadway show. Which only goes to prove, friends, that even some people in the audio/video business are unable to understand the difference between a “soundtrack” and a cast album.