Spring for Hitler

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Movie
German title Spring for Hitler
Original title The Producers
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1968
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Mel Brooks
script Mel Brooks
production Sidney Glazier
music John Morris
camera Joseph F. Coffey
cut Ralph Rosenblum
occupation

Spring for Hitler (German alternative title: Totally crazy Broadway , original title: The Producers ) is an American comedy film by director Mel Brooks from 1968 .

content

The once successful, but now run-down Broadway theater producer Max Bialystock and the shy auditor Leo Bloom are trying to make money with the following plan: First collect massive amounts of money from investors, then bring a play that is sure to fail on stage at minimal cost, Settle down to Brazil with the difference and leave the donors empty-handed.

After the wacky screenwriter and Nazi Franz Liebkind, the eccentric director Roger De Bris and the hippie and wannabe actor Lorenzo St. DuBois (whose initials LSD are no coincidence) as the leading actors, the necessary staff has been found, the prerequisites for one seem to be found Flop to be fulfilled optimally. But then everything turns out differently than planned. The music revue Frühling for Hitler, intended as a justification for the Nazi dictator, turned out to be a definite success. And above all because the audience perceives it as a successful farce that pulled the National Socialist era through the cocoa. With which Bialystock and Bloom of course have a problem, because Bialystock had previously sold profit shares in the piece amounting to 25,000%. They try to solve it by trying to blow up the theater together with Liebkind, who also swaps the detonators (long-term for short-term).

And so all three end up in prison, which does not prevent them from producing another piece there under the title Prisoners of Love using the same business methods.

reception

In addition to to be or not to be and The Great Dictator , Spring is one of Hitler's most successful attempts to deal with German National Socialism in a comedic way . In contrast to the Lubitsch film from 1942 and Chaplin's Hitler parody from 1940, Mel Brooks has tackled this topic in a grossly over the top form. The fact that this film was only shown in the German version with Benno Hoffmann as the voice for Zero Mostel and Harald Leipnitz as the spokesman for Gene Wilder in 1976 - that is, eight years late - was primarily not because the rather shoddy one Humor, which is also typical of Brooks' later productions, would not have been compatible with a special German understanding of humor. As the example of the German version of Casablanca , which was performed in the Federal Republic of Germany up to the mid-1970s, shows that there were still reservations about such film material at the time.

Reviews

Prisma Online said: “Mel Brooks made a crazy showbiz comedy with 'Spring for Hitler'. From eccentric producers to vain actors to snobbish critics, the film targets all professional groups who earn their daily bread with show business. Gene Wilder received an Oscar nomination for his comedic feat as a neurotic accountant. Director and writer Mel Brooks received the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. In the spring of 2001 Brooks directed a stage version of the film on Broadway - again with resounding success with critics and audiences. "

The lexicon of international films judged: "Excessively exaggerated satire on show business and its mechanisms with countless gustatory slips."

Hans-Christoph Blumenberg wrote in Die Zeit in 1976 : “In view of Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, Jerry Lewis , for example, appears completely 'normal'. Spring for Hitler is one grandiose 'sick joke' about the corrupt conditions in the commercial American theater, at the same time an extravagant document for the ecstatic hatred of Teutons of the filmmaker Mel Brooks. "

effect

Based on this film, the Broadway musical The Producers was created in 2001 , for which Mel Brooks also wrote the book. This musical won a total of 12 Tony Awards (so-called stage Oscar) in 2001, which was the record of Hello, Dolly! from 1964 has been surpassed.

This musical formed the basis for the remake The Producers from 2005.

Jan Böhmermann and Serdar Somuncu parodied the song Springtime For Hitler in the episode Kommando Norbert Blüm of Neo Magazin Royale under the name "Frühling Für Frauke ". The text referred to the successes of the alternative for Germany in the state elections in 2016.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Spring for Hitler in the German dubbing file ; Retrieved August 15, 2009.
  2. ↑ Spring for Hitler and Lili Marleen from spiegel.de, accessed on February 20, 2018.
  3. ↑ prisma.de: Spring for Hitler
  4. ↑ Spring for Hitler. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ^ Hans-Christoph Blumenberg : Film Tips . In: Die Zeit , No. 14/1976.
  6. ↑ NEO MAGAZINE ROYALE: Spring for Frauke | NEO MAGAZIN ROYALE with Jan Böhmermann - ZDFneo. March 17, 2016, accessed March 18, 2016 .