Next to Max Bialystok's office is a door with "Hertzberg Dance School" printed on the glass. Michael Hertzberg was the film's first assistant director.
One major reason the film ever got released at all was due to the intervention of Peter Sellers. After Brooks completed the picture, at that point entitled "Springtime for Hitler," executive producer Joseph E. Levine told Brooks the film wouldn't be released because he thought it was in poor taste and not very funny. Meanwhile, while Sellers was in Hollywood making I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, he liked to screen movies for him and his friends' entertainment. One night this film was screened, and Sellers loved it. When he heard it would not be released he began calling Levine, and eventually convinced him to release it - the only compromise being that the title be changed to "The Producers".
One of Roger Ebert's Great Movies.
Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
The "Springtime For Hitler" number took a whole day to film.
The "Springtime for Hitler" sequences were filmed at Broadway's Playhouse Theater (torn down in 1969), whose marquee can be glimpsed momentarily. However, in the scene where the theater blows up, we see the marquee of the Cort Theater, which stood (and still stands) across 48th Street from the Playhouse.
The character played by Gene Wilder is named Leo Bloom. His co-star Zero Mostel became famous for his portrayal of James Joyce's character Leopold Bloom in an Off-Broadway production of "Ulysses In Nighttown."
The date on the copy of Variety announcing the casting call is September 6, 1967.
The movie is actually based on a response Brooks gave in an interview with Larry Siegel in 'Playboy' in 1966:
- PLAYBOY: What else are you working on?
- BROOKS: Springtime for Hitler.
- PLAYBOY: You're putting us on.
- BROOKS: No, it's the God's honest truth. It's going to be a play within a play, or a play within a film - I haven't decided yet. It's a romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden. There was a whole nice side of Hitler. He was a good dancer - no one knows that. He loved a parakeet named Bob - no one knows that either. It's all brought out in the play.
The movie's line "We find the defendants incredibly guilty." was voted as the #88 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007. "I'm author. You are the audience. I outrank you!" was #14 in the same.
The name "Bialystock" is taken from the Polish city with the same name, from which Mel Brooks's ancestors had come. Until the Holocaust, Bialystock had been a major Eastern European Jewish city.
The name "Rudolfo" that the "hold me, touch me" lady gives to Bialystock when they are playing "The Contessa and the Chauffeur" at the movie's beginning, is also the name of the chauffeur Bialystock after he and Bloom raise the money for the play.
The name of the character Carmen Ghia (Andréas Voutsinas) comes from the Karmann Ghia, a Volkswagen coupe manufactured from 1955 to 1974.
The original screenplay had Franz Liebkind having Max and Leo swearing on The Siegfried Oath, accompanied by "The Ride of the Valkyries" and promising fealty to Siegfried, Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul von Hindenburg, The Graf Spee, The Blue Max, and Adolph "You know who." This explains Franz's outraged cry when entering Max's office, "You have broken the Siegfried Oath - you must die!" The Oath was restored in the musical version.
The original Swedish title for the film was a direct translation of the original title - Producenterna (The Producers). The film didn't arouse much interest from the public. This changed when the title was replaced by "Det våras för Hitler" (Springtime for Hitler). Then the film became an instant smash. All subsequent Mel Brooks films then got Swedish title starting with "Det våras för..." e.g. "Det våras för Frankenstein" (Young Frankenstein)/ ..."Sherriffen" (Blazing Saddles) / ..."Galningarna" (High Anxiety etc. except for Brooks' two last films, which received the Swedish titles "Robin Hood: Karlar i trikåer" (Robin Hood: Men in Tights) and "Dracula - Död men lycklig" (Dracula: Dead and Loving It; literally "Dracula - Dead but Happy").
The scene with Max and Leo outside the fountain at Lincoln Center was the last scene to be filmed. Gene Wilder thought Leo's ecstasy mirrored his own at the time, and was what convinced him to stay with acting.
This is the first film directed by Mel Brooks and scored by John Morris. The two would continue to work together until Life Stinks.
To better get into character, Kenneth Mars slept in his costume every night. It was also Mars's idea to have Liebkind's helmet spattered with pigeon defecation.
When Leo is going hysterical in Max's office, Gene Wilder imagined Zero Mostel was hurting his pet dog to put him in the right frame of mind.
Mel Brooks:
[The Producers]
This was Mel Brooks' first movie. All of Brooks's future movies make at least one reference to this one, some with bits of a musical and others by referring to Nazi Germany.