The Producers

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Celebrate Mel Brooks’ 100th birthday on Sunday, June 28 with his Oscar-winning film THE PRODUCERS (1967), starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilde and screening in arthouses all across the continent in tribute to this comedy legend.

Born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, Mel Brooks (borrowing his mother’s maiden name, Brookman) worked the Catskills resorts, wrote for Sid Caesar’s programs, and created The 2000 Year-Old Man, The Critic, and Get Smart before launching his all-timer film career with THE PRODUCERS in 1968.

Once the King of The Great White Way, Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) is reduced to romancing old ladies to finance his next flop show. But when nervous accountant Leopold Bloom (Gene Wilder) surmises that more money could be made from a flop than a hit, the next step is to produce the Busby Berkeley-esque musical Springtime for Hitler and to cast stoned-out Flower Child “LSD” (Dick Shawn) in the lead. A surefire flop—or is it? Writer/director Brooks nabbed an Oscar® for Best Original Screenplay in 1968, while his movie skyrocketed from controversial cult comedy to Classic, now on the National Film Registry and umpteen lists of the funniest movies ever made, with Mostel and Wilder considered the greatest comedy team since Laurel & Hardy and The Marx Brothers.

• Country USA
• Year 1968
• Running Time 90 minutes
• Format DCP
• Distributor Rialto
• Director Mel Brooks
• Cast Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars
• Accessibility Assistive Listening, T-Coil

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