I began directing by shouting “Cut!” Everybody broke up. I said, “Oh! That’s right. First I say ‘action,’ and then I say ‘cut.’?” But it worked. Everybody on the set relaxed. Even I relaxed. And then we began shooting.
My heart took wing when I saw how beautifully Zero and Gene seamlessly melded into Bialystock and Bloom. I was thrilled when they were doing this scene, where Bialystock shows Bloom the unbelievable script:
BIALYSTOCK
Smell it. See it. Touch it.
BLOOM
What is it?
BIALYSTOCK
What is it. We’ve struck gold.
Not fool’s gold, but real gold.
The mother lode. The mother lode.
The mother of them all. Kiss it.
BLOOM
[brightening]
You found a flop!
BIALYSTOCK
A flop, that’s putting it mildly.
We found a disaster! A catastrophe! An outrage!
A guaranteed-to-close-in-one-night beauty!
BLOOM
Let’s see it.
BIALYSTOCK
This is freedom from want forever. This is a house
in the country. This is a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley.
This is wine, women, and song and women.
BLOOM
SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER,
A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva in Berchtesgaden.
Fantastic!
BIALYSTOCK
It’s practically a love letter to Hitler!
BLOOM
[ecstatic]
This won’t run a week!
BIALYSTOCK
Run a week? Are you kidding?
This play has got to close on page four.
* * *
—
We started filming on May 22, 1967. Most of filming went well, but in the making of every movie there are always a couple of unforeseen rough spots.
Like when we were at the Playhouse Theatre on Forty-eighth Street to film our big production number, “Springtime for Hitler.” We were blessed with the talents of our choreographer, Alan Johnson. One of the big numbers in every burlesque show is a parade of girls coming down the steps to the rhythm of a tenor singing “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.” Alan did the same thing, only he dressed the girls in German clichés: German helmets, bratwurst, pretzels, and beer. As “Springtime for Hitler” reached its musical climax, I had an overhead camera shoot the chorus forming a huge swastika slowly rotating in the magical tempo of Ravel’s “Boléro.”
That was the first unforeseen rough spot I had to get over. It seemed that Joseph E. Levine, who’d been invited to watch the filming of the number, furiously objected to the big swastika climax. He said it had to go or he’d stop the production.
I said, “Joe, don’t worry about it. It’s out.”
This was the beginning of a pattern for me…lying to the studio at every turn. On every movie I’ve done since then, I’ve often lied when the studio objected to something by saying, “It’s out!”
But of course, never taking it out. It was always in. (Thank god, they never remembered.)
* * *
—
Another rough spot was that we were running out of time one day and I had scheduled the blue blanket hysterical scene in which Gene Wilder goes berserk. I knew I had to get it done because we were changing the set the next day and I would be out of the office set. We had rehearsed the scene and Gene was exhausted.
When I told him we had to shoot it right then he said, “I can’t. Please, Mel, let’s do it tomorrow when I’ll have enough energy to do it right.”
I said, “Gene, we’re in trouble. We’ve got to do it right now. Tomorrow we’re in a different set.” I asked him, “What can I do to help you?”
He said, “Get me Hershey bars. I need quick energy.”
I said, “With or without almonds?”
He said, “Without, without! The nuts might get stuck in my throat.”
Faster than you could say “abracadabra,” we got him two Hershey bars (without almonds). He ate them, drank a glass of water, and dove into the scene. He was magnificent.
To prove I’m not lying, get a copy of The Producers and watch the blue blanket scene. It was hysterically funny then and it will be hysterically funny forever.
* * *
—
One day we were on a tenement roof somewhere on the Lower East Side filming the scene where Bialystock and Bloom meet Franz Liebkind and his pigeons. We broke for lunch and Gene, Zero, Kenny, and I went to a diner nearby to grab something to eat. When we entered, the noisy diner suddenly fell silent. And I thought, What’s going on?
And then as we walked to a booth in the back I realized they were all staring at Kenny Mars, who was still in costume. He was wearing his German helmet and a swastika armband!
I said, “Kenny, quick! Take off the helmet and the swastika before something happens.”
And when he did, everything relaxed. I had gotten so used to living with German helmets and swastikas I completely forgot that we were in New York and not Berlin during World War II. That was a near miss!
One day I said, “Take a half an hour, everybody. Lunch is on me.” I ran out and I got maybe thirty sandwiches and thirty coffees in a big cardboard box for the cast and crew. When I got back to the studio, there was a different receptionist at the front desk. A temp.
I’m carrying the sandwiches and she says, “They are shooting a movie in there. The red light is on, you can’t go in.”
I said, “I have to go in. I’m the director of the movie.”
She said, “Excuse me?”
I said, “No, I really am. I’m the director!”
She said, “Oh, you’re the director. Can I have a sandwich, Mr. Director?”
Finally, Mike Hertzberg, my assistant director (who would also later produce Blazing Saddles), came out and said, “What’s going on here?”
I said, “She won’t let me in. She doesn’t believe I’m the director.”
Mike said, “He’s the director! He’s the director!” and then opened the door for me to go in.
As I passed her she gave a sheepish grin and whispered, “I’m sorry, so sorry, you don’t look like a director!”
“Thank you,” I said.
To this day, I often wonder what a director should look like.
* * *
—
It’s at the Lincoln Center fountain that Leo Bloom caves in and risks everything to join Max Bialystock in their mad scheme to produce the catastrophic Broadway flop that would make them rich. The dialogue goes like this:
BLOOM
If we get caught, we’ll go to prison.
BIALYSTOCK
You think you’re not in prison now?
Living in a gray little room. Going to a gray little job. Leading a gray little life.
BLOOM
You’re right. I’m a nothing.
I spend my life counting other people’s money—
people I’m smarter than, better than. Where’s my share?
Where’s Leo Bloom’s share? I want, I want,
I want everything I’ve ever seen in the movies!
BIALYSTOCK
Leo, say you’ll join me!
Nothing can stop us.
BLOOM
I’ll do it! By god, I’ll do it!
The black marble base that surrounded the fountain was awash with puddles of water because when we booked the night shoot at Lincoln Center I met the engineer who was in charge of the fountain and I said to him, “On a given signal, could the fountain go really high to celebrate a special moment in the movie?”
He said, “Mr. Brooks, the fountain normally goes up to ten or twelve feet, but if necessary, I can get it up to twenty-five.”