The Producers (1967 film)

The Producers
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMel Brooks
Written byMel Brooks
Produced bySidney Glazier
Starring
CinematographyJoseph Coffey
Edited byRalph Rosenblum
Music byJohn Morris
Distributed byEmbassy Pictures
Release dates
  • November 22, 1967 (1967-11-22) (Pittsburgh)[1][2]
  • March 18, 1968 (1968-03-18) (wide release)[3]
Running time
88 minutes[1][4][5]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$941,000[6]
Box office$1.6 million (Rentals)[7]

The Producers is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film. It was written and directed by Mel Brooks, and stars Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, and Kenneth Mars. The film is about a con artist theater producer and his accountant who scheme to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in a stage musical designed to fail. To this end, they find a playscript celebrating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and bring it to the stage. Because of this theme, The Producers was controversial from the start,[8][9] and received mixed reviews. It became a cult film,[10] and found a more positive critical reception later.

The Producers was Brooks's directorial debut.[11] For the film, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"[12] and placed eleventh on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list. It was later adapted by Brooks and Thomas Meehan as a stage musical, which itself was adapted into a film.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference tcm was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "The Producers". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on September 14, 2017. Retrieved August 13, 2017.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference wided was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "The Producers (A)". British Board of Film Classification. December 29, 1967. Archived from the original on September 19, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference nyt68adler was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Wise, Damon (August 16, 2008). "The Making of The Producers". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 12, 2016. Retrieved April 2, 2013.
  7. ^ "Big Rental Films of 1968". Variety. January 8, 1969. p. 15. Archived from the original on June 23, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2018. Please note this figure is a rental accruing to distributors.
  8. ^ Gonshak, Henry (October 16, 2015). Hollywood and the Holocaust. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442252240.
  9. ^ Symons, Alex (August 6, 2012). Mel Brooks in the Cultural Industries. ISBN 9780748664504.
  10. ^ Wise, Damon (August 15, 2008). "Mel Brooks talks about the making of the Producers". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 12, 2016. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  11. ^ Champlin, Charles (March 8, 1968). "Mel Brooks talks about 'The Producers' in 1968 interview". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 26, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  12. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved 2020-05-08.