In 1972 something happened which I don’t think was ever to happen again: all five members of my immediate family went to the cinema on a Saturday night. For this to happen, for my late teenage brothers to want to be seen in my company on Kings Road Chelsea, it must have been some film. It was.
The genuine ‘sleeper’ hit doesn’t exist anymore. Since Blair Witch everything gets trailed to death on the net before most people have seen a frame and The Producers was a classic example of the sleeper hit. The executives at Embassy Pictures initially refused to release it on the grounds of bad taste and it took a full page ad by Peter Sellers to get a very limited release. Still, it got an Oscar for best screenplay plus a nomination for Gene Wilder as best supporting actor but with an unwilling studio and a fairly dull title it could have easily gone the way of 1968’s duds like Live A Little, Love A Little (Elvis) and The Pink Jungle (James Garner). Even the critical reception was mixed; until IMDB the bible of film comment in the UK was Halliwell’s film guide in which the great man and sometime ITV film buyer, while grudgingly acknowledging its cult following, condemned it as ‘dismally unfunny’.
So it was left to audiences to discover it for themselves and that included my own mother. One afternoon, listening to Radio 4, she heard a short piece on the film including a synopsis and a clip from ‘Springtime For Hitler’. She related this to my father that evening and the family outing was in the bag. In those days both parents sold antiques on Portobello Road as a sideline. This meant getting up at half past four to catch the early trade and a Saturday night out was almost non existent. But they found an anticipatory second wind we all trooped along to The Classic, Chelsea and dutifully sat through the supporting feature (The Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers - surprisingly funny in a full cinema) before a fat old grotesque filled the screen being seduced by an old lady.
I won’t bore you with the plot. Most people have now seen it or at least think they have and it’s not the plot that’s funny. In fact, like a lot of films which are genuinely funny, it’s fairly obvious that a lot of bitterness and hate went into its making. Brooks had been knocking around for years as his contemporaries (Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, Neil Simon) became stars but aside from The 2000 Year Old Man and The Critic (OK, that got an Oscar too) was not a name on everyone’s lips. He wasn’t to everyone’s taste and was almost condemned to become saddled forever with the accursed title ‘Comedian’s Comedian’ reserved for the under-rated user-unfriendly stand up who is adored by his peers but ignored by the wider World. What he did with The Producers was to take all the worst aspects of showbiz, all its greed and shallowness and pig ignorance and spew it out in one 90 minute chunk.
So it’s not just Springtime For Hitler that we should be celebrating. Let’s also hear it for Roger De Bris, the idiot director. After reading the script for Springtime he says “Did you know, I never knew that the Third Reich meant Germany. I mean it's just drenched with historical goodies like that...” which, having met a few stage and TV producers, is not far off the mark. The entire profession is staffed by people who literally know nothing but, crucially, will do anything. And Brooks loves it and wants to be part of it and, if you’ve ever seen him interviewed, has no ‘off’ switch but he was also fully aware of how evil and dangerous it is. And in a world where politics has become a branch of showbiz and where Tory hopefuls name check The Jam it’s a lesson worth heeding.
From The Producers it’s a fairly regular slope downhill to Robin Hood – Men in Tights. Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are funny; I have friends who cite the farting scene as the funniest thing ever. Silent Movie to History Of The World have their moments. To Be Or Not To Be is a fairly pointless remake of a Lubitsch classic but it’s nice to see him working with Ann Bancroft. Then there’s Spaceballs which, along with everything else on film since, was dire. A look at his entire canon indicates that The Producers got everything Brooks truly cared about and the remainder got what was left over. And if you don’t think so then ask yourself why there’s been no stage musical of Life Stinks.
The genuine ‘sleeper’ hit doesn’t exist anymore. Since Blair Witch everything gets trailed to death on the net before most people have seen a frame and The Producers was a classic example of the sleeper hit. The executives at Embassy Pictures initially refused to release it on the grounds of bad taste and it took a full page ad by Peter Sellers to get a very limited release. Still, it got an Oscar for best screenplay plus a nomination for Gene Wilder as best supporting actor but with an unwilling studio and a fairly dull title it could have easily gone the way of 1968’s duds like Live A Little, Love A Little (Elvis) and The Pink Jungle (James Garner). Even the critical reception was mixed; until IMDB the bible of film comment in the UK was Halliwell’s film guide in which the great man and sometime ITV film buyer, while grudgingly acknowledging its cult following, condemned it as ‘dismally unfunny’.
So it was left to audiences to discover it for themselves and that included my own mother. One afternoon, listening to Radio 4, she heard a short piece on the film including a synopsis and a clip from ‘Springtime For Hitler’. She related this to my father that evening and the family outing was in the bag. In those days both parents sold antiques on Portobello Road as a sideline. This meant getting up at half past four to catch the early trade and a Saturday night out was almost non existent. But they found an anticipatory second wind we all trooped along to The Classic, Chelsea and dutifully sat through the supporting feature (The Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers - surprisingly funny in a full cinema) before a fat old grotesque filled the screen being seduced by an old lady.
I won’t bore you with the plot. Most people have now seen it or at least think they have and it’s not the plot that’s funny. In fact, like a lot of films which are genuinely funny, it’s fairly obvious that a lot of bitterness and hate went into its making. Brooks had been knocking around for years as his contemporaries (Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, Neil Simon) became stars but aside from The 2000 Year Old Man and The Critic (OK, that got an Oscar too) was not a name on everyone’s lips. He wasn’t to everyone’s taste and was almost condemned to become saddled forever with the accursed title ‘Comedian’s Comedian’ reserved for the under-rated user-unfriendly stand up who is adored by his peers but ignored by the wider World. What he did with The Producers was to take all the worst aspects of showbiz, all its greed and shallowness and pig ignorance and spew it out in one 90 minute chunk.
So it’s not just Springtime For Hitler that we should be celebrating. Let’s also hear it for Roger De Bris, the idiot director. After reading the script for Springtime he says “Did you know, I never knew that the Third Reich meant Germany. I mean it's just drenched with historical goodies like that...” which, having met a few stage and TV producers, is not far off the mark. The entire profession is staffed by people who literally know nothing but, crucially, will do anything. And Brooks loves it and wants to be part of it and, if you’ve ever seen him interviewed, has no ‘off’ switch but he was also fully aware of how evil and dangerous it is. And in a world where politics has become a branch of showbiz and where Tory hopefuls name check The Jam it’s a lesson worth heeding.
From The Producers it’s a fairly regular slope downhill to Robin Hood – Men in Tights. Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are funny; I have friends who cite the farting scene as the funniest thing ever. Silent Movie to History Of The World have their moments. To Be Or Not To Be is a fairly pointless remake of a Lubitsch classic but it’s nice to see him working with Ann Bancroft. Then there’s Spaceballs which, along with everything else on film since, was dire. A look at his entire canon indicates that The Producers got everything Brooks truly cared about and the remainder got what was left over. And if you don’t think so then ask yourself why there’s been no stage musical of Life Stinks.
No comments:
Post a Comment