The Producers | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Mel Brooks |
Written by | Mel Brooks |
Produced by | Sidney Glazier |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Joseph Coffey |
Edited by | Ralph Rosenblum |
Music by | John Morris |
Distributed by | Embassy Pictures |
Release dates | |
Running time | 88 minutes[1][4][5] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
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 purposely designed to fail. Searching for the worst script imaginable, they find a script 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.
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