The Producers

You know how some directorial debuts become thet best-known works of a director? Some notable examples are Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and John Huston's The Maltese Falcon. Another good example is Mel Brooks' The Producers.

Theatrical producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is having difficulty producing successful plays. He's stooped down to romancing elderly women for money. Accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) points out that Max made more money from a flop than from a successful play. Because of this, Max and Leo try to find material bad enough for it to be a flop. Their answer? Springtime for Hitler.

It usually takes a lot for a movie to make me laugh a lot. And having seen Brooks' two other well-known movies (Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein), I was a little uncertain that it would deliver. But hey, Brooks did win an Oscar for its screenplay. Not bad for first movie.

My Rating: *****

Young Frankenstein

Mel Brooks has an interesting career. He won an Oscar for his first movie, is one of the few people to have an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy (his wife Anne Bancroft was close to accomplishing that feat) and has directed some of the funniest movies of all time. One of them is Young Frankenstein.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) ("It's pronounced 'Fronk-en-steen'.") finds out he inherited his family's castle. After meeting such characters as Igor (Marty Feldman), who pronounces his name "Eye-gor", and Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman), whose name causes horses to whinny, he also meets his new lab assistant Inga (Teri Garr) who is more sane than the other two. Frederick and Igor successfully obtain a corpse to re-animate, but Igor destroys the desired brain by mistake and grabs one that's abnormal. Problems arise when not only the Monster (Peter Boyle) is on the loose, but when Frederick's uptight fiance Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn) comes.

I'll admit it has been some time since I've seen this, but I remember enough that this is a very funny movie. I mean, who doesn't crack up from Igor's side-changing hump ("What hump?") or from the "Puttin' on the Ritz" bit? Sure it's typical Mel Brooks in some scenes, but it's still hilarious.

My Rating: *****

And now, the "Puttin' on the Ritz" scene: