The Producers (1968)

"The Producers" is my favorite comedy of all time.

From the start, this 1968 Mel Brooks comedy about two men intentionally producing the ultimate Broadway bomb in order to make a fortune is a sick, twisted and nasty joke. It opens with Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock making it with an elderly widow. Sex. He seeks her money, she seeks a fucking thrill. Tit-for-tat. He has lots of these encounters, you see. In walks Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), a panic-prone accountant with no spine. Poking around Max's cooked books, Bloom realizes that a producer can make more money off a Broadway bomb than a Broadway hit. The con is on as the two men finance a sure-fire dud in "Springtime for Hitler" -- a glowing Nazi tribute written by a fanatical SS loyalist. Sick. Twisted. Nasty.

The laugh per minute ratio is God-sized high, none more so than the realization that Brooks is ripping Hollywood's low tastes, not Broadways. Brooks' staging of the play within the film is so offensive, it's brilliant.

The cast is on all cylinders from Mostel and Wilder to Kenneth Mars ("Young Frankenstein") as the Nazi and Christopher Hewitt ("Mr. Belvedere") as a cross-dressing gay director. PC this is not, thank God. Every line is a classic and endlessly quotable. Avoid the terrible musical remake; it's offensively bad. A+