I love Alfred Hitchcock, but there are holes in my knowledge of Hitchcock movies so I decided to fill one of those holes today with Strangers on a Train.

Now, I knew of the storyline for years, since it came up on an episode of Castle with Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic.  Two strangers meet on a train and they decide to swap the murders of the troublesome people in their lives so there would be no motive for the murders.

Well, that was not quite the way it went in the classic movie.  In Hitchcock’s film, tennis pro Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is on a train and he is approached by Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker).  Bruno was clearly setting up Guy for his plan, being very manipulative and tricky.  The whole idea about swapping murders was made to come off as nothing more than a flippant conversation.  Guy never gave it a second thought, but clearly Bruno had done his research.

Bruno followed Guy’s wife (whom Guy wanted to divorce, but she refused to accept one) on a date to the carnival where he strangled her to death.  Soon, he approached Guy with the news of the murder and he hoped to plan what he wanted to do with his father, the intended victim Bruno wanted Guy to kill.

Guy was shocked and angry and threatened to go to the police, but Bruno said that the police would believe that they planned this together and that would make Guy an accessory.

I enjoyed this movie, but there were some glaring problems that I had with the narrative, starting with, if I were Guy, I would have gone to the police immediately and trusted that I could convince them that I was not the murderer.  The fact that Guy does not do that immediately tells us more about the weakness of his character than anything else.  He also does not “come clean” with his fiance Anne (Ruth Roman) until she figures him out.  She believed him fairly quickly after catching him in the lie which showed how much she loved him.

There were some weird scenes when Bruno tried to insinuate himself into Guy’s life, showing the skills of a stalker, more than anything else. The strangest of all of the situations was when Bruno lost control and almost accidentally strangled a socialite at a party because he was demonstrating how to murder someone and caught a glance at Anne’s sister Barbara (Patricia Hitchcock) who had a passing resemblance to the woman he murdered.  That was a strange addition to the story and really felt out of place.  Perhaps it was just to demonstrate how crazy Bruno was.

There was a lot of tension and suspense built through the film, as the scenes flashed back between Bruno on his way to the carnival and Guy playing tennis.  It may not sound like it should have worked, but it was very effective.  And the final fight on the out-of-control merry-go-round was actually very solid, even though the chances that it could actually happen would be inconceivable.

Strangers on a Train is full of anxiety and tension and, because of that, it is a lot of fun.  The performances are solid even if there are some narrative scenes that make you roll your eyes at the plausibility of them.

In this darkly black comedy, Colin Farrell starred in a film where two hitmen, after a job goes bad, are sent to Bruges, Belgium to lay low until the people in charge decide what has to be done.  While in Bruges, Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is enjoying the medieval ambiance of the city while Ray (Colin Farrell) struggles with what has happened and the uncomfortable surrounding he has found himself stuck in.

This was a hoot.  I laughed throughout the movie and truly enjoyed it.  The fellow hitman relationship between Ken and Ray was excellent and both actors brought some of the best work I have seen them do.

There is more to the movie than just the laughs though.  There is an inventiveness that is on display with the typical genre fare that is quite unexpected.  There is a deep character arc, especially for Ray as he tried to live with the tragic circumstances that he found himself in.  The film examines honor and responsibility from a bit of a warped perspective.

There is a scene with a karate chop and a dwarf that absolutely made me laugh so hard I cried.  It was a fabulously funny moment among a mockingly humorous situation.

The city of Bruges was gorgeous as a backdrop as well, though Ray never had a good word to say about it.  It brought a certain fairy tales aspect to the story, which is a joke you’ll understand once you see In Bruges.

Ralph Fiennes arrives two thirds into the movie as the big boss and I was not as fond of that character near as much, but he was a consistent threat and really kicked the action for the third act into gear.

This was not your typical hitmen movie, but it surely had all the elements of a great one.  I really enjoyed this film more than I expected.  It is currently on Netflix.

Bob Woodard (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) worked for the Washington Post during a time of great unrest in the country.  The Vietnam War was underway and President Richard Nixon was having people engage in sabotage against the Democratic party.  Watergate was not a household word at the time, but it would grow to the stature of scandal that led the President of the United States to resign, the only time in our history (so far) where a President stepped down from office in midterm.

All the President’s Men is the film based the novel written by Woodward and Bernstein detailing those times of the early 1970s when this drama was unfolding.

This was a tremendous movie, featuring two of the best actors of the day in Redford and Hoffman telling one of the most important stories of corruption and power of our time.

It is the reason why it is necessary for the United States to have a free press and why that fact is protected within the US Constitution in the very first amendment.

I was riveted through the entire film as Woodward and Bernstein ran down every clue they could find, using whatever tricks or maneuvers they had in their arsenal to confirm stories and make sure that what they were printing was not fake news (if you’ll forgive the allusion).

There were other awesome performances in the film as well.  Jason Robards (who wins an Oscar for this role)  played Ben Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post.  Bradlee’s support of Woodward and Bernstein is one reason why the truth was able to surface.  Hal Holbrook played Deep Throat, the ultra secret shadowy informant who provided hints and details to Woodward (in 2005 Deep Throat was revealed to be former FBI associate director Mark Felt).  Jack Warden played Harry Rosenfeld, the editor of the Post at the time.  Jane Alexander played a bookkeeper who provided vital information for Woodward and Bernstein (and she received an Oscar nomination for her role).

Watching the process of following up leads and trying to protect sources by allowing them the ability to only confirm facts was fascinating.  It was also impressive to see how the entire group worked together, despite the external pressures loaded upon the staff of the Post.

I will tell you that this entire film felt very relevant to what is happening in the world today.  There is little doubt that the country itself faces these kind of challenges and, with any luck, will come out of today’s issues as well as they did in the 1970s.  These movies featuring hard working journalists (who are not the enemy of the people) are always fascinating films and All the President’s Men is no exception.

There was a tweet late last week from John Rocha, one of the Top 10 Show hosts and film connoisseur, recommending the film starring Paul Newman as an alcoholic, down on his luck lawyer who was handed a huge case in The Verdict.  I had heard Rocha and his co-host talk about The Verdict on another show and I was interested in seeing it so I searched it out.

The Verdict is a wonderfully acted and taut story of a pregnant woman who had been given the incorrect anesthesia during a surgical procedure that led to her having brain damage and slipping forever into a coma.

Lawyer Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) turned down an initial offer of $210,000 from the Church and the hospital in Boston where the two highly respected doctors involved were on staff.  This was probably the one area where I had some problems with the film.  It is known that a lawyer is duty-bound to present any settlement offers to his/her clients before rejecting it.  In the movie, Frank rejects the offer without checking with the victim’s sister and the sister’s husband.  In fact, the couple were very mad at turning down the money, since they could have used it.  That was a major faux pas.

Frank started the case for the money, but along the way, after he went and saw the victim, he gained perspective on life and the unfairness of the situation.  Newman really played the character well, highlighting the desperation and guilt over the chance that he could lose the case.  You can see the progression of the character from an angry drunk to someone who is ready to fight.

The Verdict seems to also have something to say about the way the court process works, as the judge, defense attorney and even Frank himself are shown doing things that benefit themselves that even border on malpractice.  The Judge (Milo O’Shea) is a reprehensible figure who tanks a round of questioning by Frank because he wanted to break until the afternoon and lunch was waiting for him.  Justice was far from his mind. Then the defense attorney, a big time lawyer named Ed Concannon (James Mason), had his own dirty dealings in the case.

Charlotte Rampling, who played Laura, a woman Frank met and became intimate with but who had her own reasons, felt superfluous to the story and did not drive enough o the story to warrant her inclusion.  She did fine in what she did, but it just felt unnecessary.

The Verdict was a fascinating movie filled with flawed people and a jury system that has its bugs as well.  Newman is outstanding and the whole cast does great work.  The Verdict was a five-time Oscar nominated film, including for Best Picture, Best Actor (Newman) and Best Supporting Actor (Mason).

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A US soldier was captured during the Korean War and he is brainwashed into being a sleeper agent.  Robert Shaw (Laurence Harvey), the son of an influential family in US, is placed in a situation to make himself look like a hero to the American public.  However, agents from China and the Soviet Union had set up an American handler to try to use Shaw to infiltrate the highest levels of the government.

The Manchurian Candidate has a definitive feel of relevance for the world we live in today.  There is some scary thoughts found here.

Angela Lansbury is just brilliant in the role as the mother of Robert Shaw and the woman who is giving her brainwashed son his orders.  She is wickedly frightening here.  She is certainly not Ms. Potts or Jessica Fletcher.

Frank Sinatra played Captain Bennett Marco, one of the men Shaw “rescued” from capture during the Korean War.  Sinatra was having dreams that made him think that something had happened that was not what they remembered exactly.

The last hour of this movie was about as good as it gets.  I really enjoyed the Manchurian Candidate.  I had not seen it previous to today’s viewing and it was surprising how much it felt like it could be a story happening today.

This is a great thriller with amazing performances.  Angela Lansbury is as bad of a mother as you are going to find in the movies and a tremendous villain.  The ending is both sad and satisfying.  The Manchurian Candidate has a lot of things going for it.  If you haven’t seen it, it is worth the two hours to see it.

This weekend was the 25th anniversary release of The Sandlot, one of the great baseball films made during the 1990s.  Much like Stand By Me, the Sandlot has a group of young boys whose bond s strengthened by a common mission.  In the Sandlot, that mission is baseball.

The coming of age story can be over-the-top and fantastical at times, but the heart is clearly there and the feelings of nostalgia is obvious.

Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) moves into a new neighborhood which is tough as the young boy does not make friends easily.  He spends most of his time inside playing with his constructor kit.  His mom (Karen Allen) tries to get him to go outside and meet friends.  He wants to join a group of boys who play baseball, but there is a problem.  Smalls has no idea how to play.

With the help of the best player among the kids, Benny (Mike Vitar), the others eventually accept Smalls and he blends in with the group.  But when a baseball is hit from the sandlot, over the fence into the next door junkyard, the legend of The Beast is revealed.

The Sandlot is a lot of fun.  The kids do a great job with what they have to do.  Admittedly, there is not any real heavy lifting to do acting wise with the exception of Tom Guiry and Mike Vitar, but the other boys are engaging and funny.

There are some good laughs in the movie too.  The scene at the pool in particular with Wendy Peffercorn (Marley Shelton) as the object of Squints’ (Chauncey Leopardi) affection is wonderful.  As are the myriad of attempts to retrieve the Babe Ruth baseball from the clutches of The Beast.

It may not be the most perfect film ever made, but there is no denying that there is a lot of fun to be had while watching this movie.

“You’re killing me, Smalls!”

Orson Welles directed this film coming on the heels of the end of World War II that deals with the escape and pursuit of Nazi war criminals.

This film noir style movie is taut and exciting and full of strong work from Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles.

Robinson played Mr. Wilson, an investigator from the United Nations War Crimes Commission who was in search of Nazi war criminal, Franz Kindler (Orson Welles).  Kindler had escaped and had established a new identity for himself in the United States.

The only hope Wilson had was to release Kindler’s associate Meinike (Konstantin Shayne) in the hopes that he might lead the way to Kindler.  Meinike does, but Wilson loses him.

Kindler’s new identity is that of Charles Rankin, a prep school teacher who has an obsession with maintaining and repairing clocks.  Rankin was preparing to marry Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young).  Meinike stopped by their home prior to the wedding.

Meinike wanted Rankin to confess and turn himself in, but instead, Rankin strangled him and buried the body.

Things began to unravel for Rankin and he started plotting to murder Mary.

The conclusion to the film was exciting and well done as the final confrontation involved the bell tower that Rankin had been helping restore.

The film contains the first documentary footage of the Holocaust.

The first Academy Award nominated performance of Tom Hanks was in Penny Marshall’s Big.  Big was also the first ever movie with a female director to gross a domestic total of over a $100 million domestic at the box office.

This is the 30th anniversary of the release of Big and Fathom Events was celebrating today with a special presentation of Big.

Tom Hanks does a fantastic job of playing the innocence and the wide-eyed wonder of a thirteen year old boy in the body of a thirty year old man.  You completely believe that Hanks is this young boy and not just an actor pretending.

Of course, the most charming scene in the film is also the most iconic scene as Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia perform a duet on a 16 foot walk on piano of both Chopsticks and Heart & Soul.  It is such a great moment.

However, poor Elizabeth Perkins whose character basically has to fall in love with and sleep with the man-sized 13-year old kid.  You cannot deny the fact that it is a little creepy these days.  Yes she did not know about the magic of Zoltar, but it still had the perception to me not of a sweet love story, but one that may be questionable.

The film is great mainly because of Tom Hanks’ performance.  The weird relationship, the connection to the best friend, the success at work all works because of Hanks.  Big is a wonderfully fun movie that you just accept.

I like musicals.  I did not know much about West Side Story outside of the typical.  Street gangs singing and fighting with each other.

So when Fathom Events showed West Side Story, the winner of 10 Academy Awards that year, I wanted to see it.

I have to say… I was disappointed.

First, the pre-show told me that Tony was played by the same guy who played Ben Horne and Russ Tamblyn, who was Riff, played Dr. Jacoby, both in Twin Peaks.  I spent much of the movie trying to see Jacoby and Ben in the face and movements of Tony and Riff.  It was a bit of a distraction.

Secondly, I kept waiting for songs that I recognized and I was surprised that I did not know very many.

While I thought the acting was wonderful and the dancing was amazing, I had some definite problems with the movie.

I did not buy the relationship between Tony and Maria (Natalie Wood).  They met one day at a dance and then were in complete love five minutes later.  Then, Tony kills her brother in the rumble after telling her that he was going to stop it from happening.  He came back to her after, she called him a murderer, and then they had sex.  What?  She was ready to kill herself at the end of the movie over his death when she met him one day before.  Since I had trouble buying their relationship, that makes everything else in the film not work.

Rita Moreno was tremendous, but I was unbelievably uncomfortable with the dance scene that was heading towards the Jets preparing to rape her in Doc’s shop.  In today’s world with the issues of immigration, the way they spoke to her during this scene made me hate these characters.

Some of the dance/music felt like the wrong tone for what was happening on the screen.

I was really bored in the first half of the film.  I will say that, after the intermission, I enjoyed the second half better.  The rumble scene was very solid.

The music and choreography was great but I keep going back to my problem with Tony and Maria and I just could not get past it.  After one day I just can’t believe that they would be that much in love to survive Tony killing her brother.

I am glad I saw it, but, for me, West Side Story is…

Recently, there has been news of a potential remake of the 1990’s film directed by Frank Marshall and produced by Steven Spielberg called Arachnophobia.  The rumors have James Wan connected to the possible remake.  It had been literally years since I saw Arachnophobia and with it being in the news, I figured today was as good of a time as any to revisit the movie.

I have never been a huge fan of spiders, but I would not say that I am afraid of them.  I can remember a time when I turned on the faucet at the sink and a couple of harmless but ugly spiders came leaping from the drain.  I was fairly frightened by that.

Arachnophobia has different tones that it goes back and forth with throughout the run time.  It is a horror/comedy.  There are definitely frightening moments of suspense as you see the killer spiders crawling around or jumping out at people.  It is balanced with the comedy that includes the over-the-top John Goodman as exterminator Delbert McClintock.

I remembered almost nothing about this movie so watching it today was almost like watching it for the first time.  I would have watched this sometime after it came out on a VHS tape, and I am sure I only ever saw it once.  I found the movie very tense and exciting, finding ways to scare me from those creepy spiders that seemingly can be everywhere at any time.

Jeff Daniels stars as a former big city doctor who is taking over a small country doctor’s practice when people begin dropping dead.  He discovered that the deaths have one thing in common:  spider bites.

However, the chance of one spider bite being toxic enough to kill these humans was not something you would expect from a spider from California.  Little did he know that an expedition brought an unexpected guest back from the jungles of Venezuela: a formerly unknown species of deadly venomous spiders.  The arachnid hitchhiker mated with a local spider, creating a deadly version that had set off across the town to kill anyone they come in contact with.

The cast is great.  John Goodman steals the show as his offbeat exterminator.  Jeff Daniels is believable as the doctor who struggles with his own arachnophobia.  Julian Sands is the snotty professor who lead the expedition to find these creatures.  Most of the small town population were well cast, if not that important.

Arachnophobia was a good time that definitely has a lot of tension and freak out moments.  This version of the film holds up very well, but it is interesting to think about what James Wan (The Conjuring, Aquaman) might do with the premise.

With Father’s Day this weekend and the release of the long awaited sequel Incredibles 2, I thought this was the perfect chance to revisit the first Incredibles, one of Pixar’s finest animated movies.

Why Father’s Day?  Well, the Incredibles, above all else, is a story about family.  The story focuses on Mr. Incredible and his difficulties on putting his past life as a super hero behind him and how those issues put his family at risk.

Of course, Mr. Incredible is married to Elastigirl and they have three children.  Dash and Violet have both developed their super powers at this point, Dash with super speed and Violet with force fields.  The baby, Jack-Jack, is the only non-super in their family.

The story of the Incredibles is near perfection.  It is one of the best super hero stories ever told on the big screen.  Everything works so well together.  The animation, for its time, was wonderful.  The voice cast featuring Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson was top notch.

The Incredibles had a definite feel of not only a super hero adventure, but a spy thriller.  Brad Bird directed this film and wound up getting Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol afterwards and he knocked it out of the park.  Much of the experience he received on The Incredibles helped him with the Tom Cruise vehicle.

The Incredibles have one of the best villains in any super hero movie.  Syndrome has a personal tie to the heroes, and you can understand his motives.  Honestly, Syndrome is like the current Pop/Geek Culture where fandom decided that their favorite thing is not as they want it so they will turn on it and try to destroy it. Star Wars is going through these issues right now after Solo and The Last Jedi.  Toxic Fandom is perfectly shown in Syndrome and it shows how far ahead of the time Brad Bird and the Incredibles actually were.

There is fantastic action.  Amazing characters with awesome characterization.  14 years before a sequel was made is a crime.  This is one of Pixar’s best films and as entertaining as you are going to find.

In 2017, FX had a television series from the mind of Ryan Murphy called Feud:  Bette and Joan.  It starred Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and the irreplaceable Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford.  It was an amazing series that focused on the real-life hatred between the two classic Hollywood divas, each struggling to stay relevant as they grew older.

The beginning of the television show highlighted the time the two actresses spent on the production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and it showed how that movie and its eventual raging success made it even worse between Crawford and Davis.

These two virtuoso performances made me interested in the movie that the series spotlighted, but I hadn’t gotten around to seeing it since.  However, this morning, I found it on YouTube and sat down to see if the film was worthy of everything that had been said of it.

Short answer:  Yes, it is.

I loved What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.  There was so much tension and nervousness about what had happened as you see Jane Hudson continuing to slip further into her own madness and you cringe with each horrible thing that she does to her crippled sister Blanche.

Jane was a child star, favored by her father, and Jane showed a seriously bratty side, demanding and misbehaving.  However, the years were not kind to Jane as her lack of real talent came through while Blanche became a sought after Hollywood star.  Jane became jealous of her sister’s success and longed for the days of Baby Jane and her, now deceased, father’s love and attention.

An unfortunate automobile accident led to Blanche being permanently crippled and being left to be taken care of by Jane.  Jane tormented her sister as she slipped into a delusional state.

Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were astounding here.  Crawford creates such empathy for Blanche with her desperate hope that her sister had not gone completely off the rails.  You can see the guilt of the situation eating away at Blanche as she tries without success to find someone to help her.

Davis is a marvel as the crazed child star.  Her appearance showed the commitment that Davis gave to the role, with white cake makeup altering her movie star image.

The film is a dark comedic/horror film and the tone fits it perfectly.  The beautiful black and white adds to the mood created by the amazing performances.  Plus, there is the creepy “Baby Jane Dolls” which may be one of the first instances of dolls being involved in a horror film.

I was really engaged in the movie, leaning ahead in my seat and imploring Blanche to yell for help to the neighbor (the wondrous Anna Lee, who spent years on General Hospital as Lila Quartermaine) or to chastise maid Elvira (Maidie Norman) to not put down that hammer as she was attempting to save Blanche.  I had connected to Blanche and I wanted her to escape from the clutches of her evil sister.

Then the ending threw everything into a jumble as there was a twist that I had not expected, which made you reconsider everything that you had seen up until that point.  It was truly well done.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is truly a wonderful movie with great performances across the board.  I did not even mention Academy Award nominated Victor Buono (later to be King Tut on the Batman TV series) as Edwin Flagg, a piano player that Jane hoped would help her make it back to show biz.

This is an amazing movie and I enjoyed every minute.

There have been some great movies about baseball, and Bull Durham, starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon, is one of them.

Kevin Costner is “Crash” Davis, a long time minor league catcher brought into the Durham Bulls to mentor a young pitching prospect, Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins).  Susan Sarandon plays Annie Savoy, a metaphysical baseball fan who picks out one player each season to have an affair with so she could pass along her odd theories on the game such as breathing through the eyes.

Annie chooses Nuke to be her lover, but she realizes that she is actually attracted to Crash.

Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon have chemistry off the charts and their dialogue is some of the best written in any sports movie.  Sarandon and Robbins actually met during the filming of this movie and they wound up getting married.

Baseball is a character in this movie as well as there are some great scenes involving the sport and how the players should play the game properly.  Annie makes a connection between baseball and sex and the film seems to embrace that idea.

There is a real love of the game in Bull Durham and writer/director Ron Shelton had had a career in minor league baseball at one point.  There was so much humor and reverence about the game, it was clear that baseball was an important part of his life.

Bull Durham is a great film featuring three wonderful performances from the three lead actors.  It has held up over the years and should be priority viewing for any player who loves the game of baseball.

I have made it a mission to see more Hitchcock films than I have before.  I started recently with Lifeboat, and today I watched a 1948 film called Rope, starring James Stewart.  According to EYG Hall of Famer Roger Ebert’s review, Hitchcock called Rope “an experiment that didn’t work,” but I would have to disagree with the master.  I found Rope thrilling and completely engaging.

Based on a play inspired by the Leopold-Loeb murder case, Rope began with the strangulation murder of a college student David (Dick Hogan) by two of his classmates, Phillip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall), who considered themselves “superior” to most people, giving them a right to commit murder.

After the crime is committed, Brandon and Phillip hid the body inside a wooden box in their apartment and prepare for a party they were having, a party with guests including David’s father (Cedric Hardwicke), his girlfriend (Joan Chandler) and their college professor Rupert Cadell (James Stewart).

Brandon and Phillip take different paths.  Brandon becoming cocky and confident and Phillip slowly unwinding because of the combination of guilt and alcohol.  All the while, Rupert was beginning to suspect.

I loved this film.  It was short, but concise and filled with tension.   The fact that the body was right there in the room as the conversations were going on continued to hype the tension of each scene, especially as Phillip continually slipped downhill.

The film depended on the dialogue very much and it was tremendously written.  The dialogue truly informed on the characters as we saw Brandon becoming more brazen and Rupert becoming more curious.  Brandon even laid out his motive during a dinner discussion about how the superior people can do what they want to the intellectually inferior people, an idea they mistakenly picked up from Rupert.

This also felt very much like a staged theater play, and the few cuts that were used by Hitchcock truly increased that feel.  Hitchcock would film continuously until the reel (which would be about 10 minutes) ran out.  He would then use a camera trick to make it seem as if they were filming with one continuous take.  The filming technique was very effective and creates a tone of the production much like that of a stage play.

Hitchcock may not have been a fan of this film, but I certainly enjoyed it.  This was again mentioned by John Rocha, this time on a Collider Mailbag show.  Rocha was also the reason why I tried out Lifeboat when he mentioned it on the Top 10 Show.

Just returned from a screening by Fathom Events of Mel Brooks’ classic comedy The Producers.  The Producers was a film I had never seen before despite the fact that I love Gene Wilder, one of the stars of the film.

Of course, The Producers had become a huge hit on Broadway a few years ago with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane assuming the roles made famous by Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.

Zero Mostel played theatrical producer Max Bialystock who was struggling to find the success that he once had.  He had succumb to romancing older women in hopes of finding “financing” for his plays.  When Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) came to look at his books, an inadvertent comment from the accountant gave Max an idea.  Find the worst play ever, find huge backing from his cadre of older women, have the play fail and close on opening night and collect the remainder of the money for himself.  After some doing, Max convinced Leo to join him in his fraudulent activity.

And they found the perfect play, something no one could possible enjoy… “Springtime for Hitler” written by a former Nazi soldier (Kenneth Mars) as a love letter to Hitler.  There was no way their plot could fail.

But strange things happen on Broadway.

The film is hilarious.  Everything in the play within a play of Springtime for Hitler is laugh out loud funny.  I loved the song “Springtime for Hitler” which I had known as a child from hearing it on the EYG Hall of Famer Dr. Demento show.  The tune can’t help but get into your head and the lyrics are downright funny.

The first film directed by Mel Brooks, The Producers led the way to a series of remarkably funny satires and parodies from Brooks.

I could also see how controversial this could have been when released in 1968.  Stories go that it took an intervention from Peter Sellers to get the studio to agree to release the film.  It is also said that Brooks received many letters from Rabbis complaining about the use of the Nazi symbolism in The Producers.  Brooks said that he responded to each letter he received.

The film does get a little too frantic at times, but the satire shone through everything else.  Gene Wilder received an Oscar nomination for his role, though he did not win.  The film did receive an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

The Producers is a lot of fun and extremely witty and funny.  Filled with biting satire, Mel Brooks was able to go after Hitler with humor and got people laughing at him.