THE PRODUCERS (MEL BROOKS MOVIE) (Blu-Ray)

The Producers is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film written and directed by Mel Brooks, and starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, and Kenneth Mars.

Max Bialystock is an aging Broadway producer whose career has veered from great success to the depths of near failure. He now ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence while romancing lascivious, wealthy elderly women in exchange for money for a next play that may never be produced. Leopold Leo Bloom, a neurotic young accountant prone to hysterics, arrives at Max's office to audit his accounts and discovers a $2,000 discrepancy in the accounts of Max's last play. Max persuades Leo to hide the fraud, and Leo realizes that, since a flop is expected to lose money, the IRS will not investigate its finances, so a producer could earn more from a flop than from a hit by overselling interests and embezzling the funds. Wishing to put this scheme into action and flee to Rio de Janeiro with the profits, Max convinces Leo to join him, treating him to lunch and a day out and saying that his drab life is little different to prison anyway.

The partners find the ideal play for their scheme: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden, a love letter to Hitler written by deranged ex-Nazi soldier Franz Liebkind. Max and Leo bond with Franz over schnapps and tell him they want to show the world a positive representation of Hitler. Now with the stage rights, Max sells 25,000% of the play to investors, using some of the money to redecorate the office and hire an attractive Swedish receptionist, Ulla.

To guarantee the show's failure, they hire Roger De Bris, a flamboyantly gay transvestite director, whose productions seldom make it past initial rehearsals. The part of Hitler goes to a hippie named Lorenzo St. DuBois, also known, in a reference to the counterculture drug, as L. S. D., who wanders into the theater during the casting call wearing a necklace made of a can of Campbell's soup attached to a rope. At the theater on opening night, Max tries to ensure a harshly negative review by attempting to bribe a New York Times theatre critic.