The Producers

“Hollywood Never Faced a Zanier Zero Hour!”

Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is a washed-up Broadway producer who pays his rent by charming rich old women into writing checks. When a nervous accountant named Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) mentions that a flop could turn a bigger profit than a hit, the two set out to oversell a musical so tasteless it can't survive, starting with a script that celebrates Hitler. Mel Brooks puts Mostel's bluster beside Wilder's trembling and lets each man start needing the other.