The Producers: Seeing The Script

Outline

‘The Producers’ is a film about an out of luck theatre producer in New York’s Broadway, Max Bialystock. He raises money for his plays by entertaining old ladies who adore him, and will pay for his ‘company’ before they die. One day while he is ‘entertaining’ an old lady, an accountant, Leo Bloom visits him. Bloom is an awkward and nervous man who when he first meets Bialystock, is very intimidated. While going through Bialystock’s accounts, Bloom discovers that if they create a play for $60,000 but raise $1,000,000, they could keep the remainder, only if the play is a flop. On discovering this, Bialystock convinces Bloom that they should do it. Find the worst play in the world, the worst director in the world and put on a play that the public would hate. Whilst looking through a mountain of scripts. Bialystock finds a play called ‘Springtime for Hitler’, a gay romp with Adolph and Eva in Berchtesgarten. They immediately find the author, Franz Leibkind, a crazy Hitler-loving, extremely patriotic German. Before he signs the contract to allow Bloom and Bialystock produce the play, he makes them swear a Nazi oath that if they ruin Hitler’s reputation he would kill them. When the deal is done, Bialystock returns to his moneymaking scheme of entertaining old ladies, and raises a million dollars. They then hire Roger De Bris, ‘the worst director that ever lived’, to direct the play. De Bris arranges a casting call, and at the audition hundreds of people show up dressed as Hitler. None of them were bad enough for the part. At the end of the audition, LSD, a longhaired man in leathers wonders on stage with a guitar asking if he was in the right place to audition for ‘Boomerang’. Bialystock tells him that he is in the right place and to sing for them. He sings a song called ‘I’m the victim of a multi-mystic freak-out’, and Bialystock and Bloom are stunned. They have their Hitler.

The opening night arrives, and there are thousands of people on Broadway for the premier of ‘Springtime for Hitler’. All goes well at the beginning, the audience are offended and some begin to walk out. That is until Hitler is on stage with Eva. The audience are intrigued and start to watch the show again and return to their seats. The audience think that the performance is a comedy, and begin to laugh. By this time, Bloom and Bialystock are sitting in a bar across from the theatre, toasting their failure with a drunk. A crowd of people enter the bar talking about how funny the play is and how they love it. Bloom and Bialystock are shocked that their flop is doing so well, and they realise that they are in big trouble, as the backers of the play will want their cut because the play is a success. Back at the theatre, Liebkind tries to stop the play, as LSD is nothing like the real Hitler. However, the audience just think that this is part of the proceedings and applause him.

When Bialystock and Bloom arrive back at the office, they have a pile of telegrams congratulating them on such a great play. Bloom then tries to escape the office with the accounting books to turn his self in, and Bialystock fights with him until they are both on the floor scrambling over the books. At this point, they hear two gunshots. Liebkind is at the door, saying that they have broken the Siegfied Oath and he has to kill them. Bialystock tries to shift the blame onto the actors, and tells Liebkind that he should kill them instead. Bloom talks him out of it, and they then have an idea to blow up the theatre. They go into the cellar of the theatre and Leibkind sets up a bomb underneath, with the detonator outsite. Unfortunately, the drunk notices the detonator and sets it off while Bloom, Bialystock and Leibkind are in the theatre. The next thing we see is the three in slings and bandages being sentenced and sent to prison for at least two years. In prison, they try the same scam again getting prisoners to invest in a play called ‘Prisoners of love’ in the prison auditorium. Bloom is collecting the money; Bialystock is directing a line of convict ‘chorus girls’ showing off their hairy legs, whilst Leibkind is wearing his German helmet playing a lively rhythm on piano.




Premise/POV

The main character is Max Bialystock and he is important because he is the catalyst for the plan to con the backers for his play. Without him (although Bloom came up with the idea) the con would not have taken place. It was his persuasion to get Bloom onside that started off the scheme to make $1,000,000. He, and Bloom have the common belief that they should get something back out of life by taking a risk and living in the moment. They were never out to intentionally hurt anyone, they were thinking about the end result, $1,000,000, throughout. The Producers is based on the idea of making money in a shameless way. The main characters are willing to ruin their reputations and (Bialystock in particular) go to any lengths so that their plan works. It is a story of determination and struggle, especially towards the end, and never giving up. As the plot develops, you are drawn more towards Bialystock, you like him more and more as the film continues. At the start he seems to bully Bloom, but as the plot continues you see that it is just his determination to make money. Another important underpinning concept of The Producers is friendship. By the end of the film, Bialystock and Bloom have become good friends, and their determination to make money continues even when they are in prison.