“Okay, Mr. Sellers, here goes,” replied Aidikoff.
Paul Mazursky said that the movie was a flat-out hilarious success. Peter never stopped laughing.
That night when the movie was over, Peter Sellers called and woke up Joseph E. Levine and said, “I’m sorry to wake you up, Joe, I know it’s two or three in the morning in New York, but I want to tell you I just saw The Producers and I want you to know how incredibly funny and marvelous it is.”
Joe said something back about a limited release, and Peter said, “No! No! You’re wrong! Open it everywhere! Make a thousand prints! Flood every screen in America! It’s a great, great comedy.”
I don’t know what Joe said back, but I know what Peter did. He was so enamored with the movie that he personally paid for a big industry ad in Variety that read:
Last night I saw the ultimate film…. “The Producers,” or as it was originally titled “Springtime for Hitler.” Brilliantly written and directed by Mel Brooks, it is the essence of all great comedy combined in a single motion picture. Without any doubt, Mel Brooks displays true genius in weaving together tragedy-comedy, comedy-tragedy, pity, fear, hysteria, schizophrenic-inspired madness and a largess of lunacy of sheer magic. The casting was perfect. Those of us who have seen the film and understand it have experienced a phenomenon which occurs only once in a life span.
Obviously, the ad had found its way to New York, and hence the lines around the block.
My spirits soared, but they came crashing down again when I read The New York Times review the next day. The Times critic Renata Adler took the picture apart—she lambasted it, saying, “But there is just enough talent and energy to keep this blackest of collegiate humors comic. Barely.” And “?‘The Producers’ leaves one alternately picking up one’s coat to leave and sitting back to laugh.” Not a review that would send you running to the movie theater.
I sat up with Anne all night after that review came out, saying: “Well, I can always go back to television. I guess they don’t want me in movies.”
I talked about giving up show business and going back to college. I’d major in organic chemistry, become a pharmacist, and open a little drugstore back in Brooklyn, at the corner of South Third and Hooper.
And then, my spirits were lifted when Look magazine’s review came out. It was by Gene Shalit. I’ll never forget his review. He wrote, “The Producers—No one will be seated during the last 88 minutes…they’ll all be on the floor, laughing!”
So I decided to stay in movieland.
* * *
—
The Producers was my first skirmish with Adolf Hitler (not counting my adventures in World War II). Most people got the joke. They loved it. They knew what I was doing. I did get almost a hundred letters from rabbis, students, scholars, and representatives of Jewish organizations who were very angry with me. I wrote back to every single one and tried to explain to them that the way you bring down Hitler and his ideology is not by getting on a soapbox with him, but if you can reduce him to something laughable, you win. That’s my job.
I also never asked the audience for sympathy. I never begged the audience for anything. They paid their money and they deserve a show, a good show. And my job is, in the end, for them to leave the theater saying, “I had a good time.” And for the most part, they were rewarded.
* * *
—
Let me tell you a little side story here about a foreign release of The Producers. It did fairly well in Europe, especially in Sweden. I had become friends with a Swedish journalist and film reviewer named Bj?rn Fremer. Bj?rn asked my permission to use an alternate title in his review, instead of calling it Producenterna (“The Producers”) he wanted to use my original title, Springtime for Hitler—Det v?ras f?r Hitler. It caught on, and the marquee in every theater in Sweden playing The Producers displayed my original title, Springtime for Hitler. It worked! Det v?ras f?r Hitler was a big hit. So much so that the Swedish film distributors decided to put a new title with Det v?ras f?r…(“Springtime for…”) in front of all my subsequent films that played in Sweden. For instance, instead of Blazing Saddles it was Det v?ras f?r Sherriffen, “Springtime for the Sheriff,” and instead of Young Frankenstein it was Det v?ras f?r Frankenstein, “Springtime for Frankenstein.” And so it went, every one of my movies that ever played in Sweden had a “springtime” in front of it. I both blamed it on and profusely thanked Bj?rn Fremer and his Swedish film journalist cohorts for all that Swedish success.
* * *
—
One morning I was at my desk writing, working on my next script, The Twelve Chairs, and the phone rang. I answered, and it sounded like my friend Speed Vogel. The voice said: “I just want you to know, Mr. Brooks, you’ve been nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Original Screenplay.”
I said, “Okay, Speed. Not funny! Up yours!” and I hung up.
I later learned that it actually wasn’t Speed Vogel. I’d given the “up yours!” to a legitimate member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I called the guy from the Academy back and I apologized and told him I thought it was a put-on. And he said, “You’re forgiven. Congratulations on the nomination. By the way, that’s the way you talk to your friends?”
Anyway, it was true. An Academy Award nomination for Original Screenplay.
I couldn’t believe it!
It was thrilling to get the nomination, but I never thought I had a chance. I was up against Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers, one of the greatest movies of all time; Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey; John Cassavette’s innovative and brilliant Faces; and Hot Millions, the really funny caper movie that Peter Ustinov wrote and starred in. I wasn’t being modest when I thought that the odds of my winning the Academy Award for Original Screenplay against that daunting competition were about a hundred to one. I was up against some of the best pictures ever made.
But the Academy thought that The Producers was so original that it deserved the award for Best Original Screenplay. And who was I to argue with them?
So there I was at the Oscars on April 14, 1969, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles presented the award. After their fun banter, Frank Sinatra opened the envelope and called out my name. In some kind of a daze, I made my way onto the stage. And this is what I actually said:
“I didn’t trust myself so I wrote a couple of things: I want to thank the Academy of Arts, Sciences and Money for this wonderful award.
“Well, I’ll just say what’s in my heart. Ba-bump! Ba-bump! Ba-bump! Ba-bump!
I was so excited I almost forgot to take the statue with me!