Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 208: Sun Aug 5

The Producers (Brooks, 1967): Rio Cinema, 4.15pm

This presentation includes appearances by director Mel Brooks before and after the movie in an interview recorded especially for this 50th Anniversary screening.

Time Out review:Mel Brooks' first feature, an absolutely hilarious and tasteless New York Jewish comedy about Broadway. Mostel plays a producer determined to clean up by staging the worst flop in history, first making sure that it's over-backed by all of the rich widows hot for him. Mostel and Wilder (as his bumbling Portnovian accountant) ham outrageously, and some of the humour falls flat. But the all-time flop itself could serve as a definition of kitsch, its centrepiece being the number 'Springtime for Hitler', all tits, pretzels and beer steins, in the best tradition of gaudy American burlesque.
Rod McShane

Here (and above) is an extract.