The Producers
How good was the screenplay by Mel Brooks? It was a movie that became a play that became a movie again. Uploaded by sinema.mynet.com.
I don’t think The Producers is Mel Brooks’s finest screenplay – how could you argue against Young Frankenstein? – but it’s close. Very close. Of course it was later adapted to a hugely successful Broadway play, which itself was made into a movie. So the screenplay isn’t just venerable, it’s achieved classic status.
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I don’t think it spoils anything to say that the premise – two losers have to create a dog of a show, but improbably create a huge success – was not only smart, but provided fertile ground for humor. But the show within the show was over-the-top brilliant: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.
Mel Brooks won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for this script, as well he should have. And consider that also nominated that year were a couple of journeymen named Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and you appreciate Brooks’s accomplishment. The movie is number 11 on the AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs list.