The Producers

Mel Brooks’s debut as a feature writer-director is arguably one of his funniest films, earning Brooks an Original Screenplay Oscar and inspiring a record-breaking Broadway musical. Zero Mostel is Max Bialystock, a seedy impresario relying on the generosity of lonely older women to finance his creative endeavors, who schemes with meek accountant Leo Bloom (an Oscar-nominated Gene Wilder, hysterical in every sense) to make a fortune on a deliberate flop, the unforgettable stage play Springtime for Hitler.