Springtime for Hitler -- in Germany

Last month, in what is surely one of the great victories in the history of comedy, Mel Brooks' musical version of The Producers opened in Berlin. The show, as I'm sure you know, is a symphony in schtick, about two men who endeavor to produce the worst musical in history. Both the 1968 film and the 2001 musical benefit from taking place in two worlds. There's the world of Bialystock and Bloom, a timeless version of the New York theatrical district -- Damon Runyon filtered through Mel Brooks. And then there's the show within the show.

As great as The Producers is -- and I dearly love both the original film and the musical -- nothing in it tops "Springtime for Hitler," one of the funniest musical production numbers ever conceived. It's a great example of what we might call the Mel Brooks Principle of comedy: "If you're going to go up to the bell," Brooks has said on many occasions, "ring it!" (He's credited the line to producer John Calley.) A measure of the greatness of "Springtime for Hitler," I've always thought, is that it can't be nearly as shocking now as it was in 1968, but it's still incredibly funny. In Berlin, however, it still has the power to make people very uncomfortable.

It opened at the Admiralspalast, a Berlin opera house where Hitler once had a private box. The "Fuhrer's Box" had been torn out after the war, but was reinstated for The Producers. Michael Kimmelman, covering the Berlin production for the New York Times, wrote:

Theatrical promotion is a ruthless business, whether the producer in question is Max Bialystock or the leather-suited Falk Walter, the real-life man who runs the Admiralspalast and on Sunday wore a pretzel-emblazoned Nazi armband when he came out to hand a prize to Mr. Brooks. (It was accepted in his absence by Thomas Meehan, who wrote the book with him and said, "I'm sorry I'm not Mel Brooks," one of the night's best lines.)

...[Walter] has been....hoping to drum up some controversy by selling a New York farce about Broadway con men as a litmus test for German tolerance of Hitler jokes. They've even hung what look like Nazi banners on the street outside the theater (again, with pretzels), making hay when a few people complained.

Here is the original "Springtime for Hitler" number, from the 1968 film:



I know there are purists who cannot abide the musical version of The Producers, but I consider it a triumph. In several key ways, it improves upon the film -- which, I think even purists have to admit when they watch it, doesn't entirely live up to our recollections. Remarkably, the one element from the film which you'd think would transfer to the stage untouched -- the "Springtime for Hitler" number -- has been tinkered with, and it's even better. In the film version of the number, Hitler himself doesn't appear at all. He comes out after the number, and that take on Hitler was, as Kenneth Tynan wrote, a "redneck high on flower power and L.S.D.," which "mixes up too many incompatible jokes." In the musical, Hitler (as understudied at the last moment by Springtime for Hitler director Roger DeBris) appears, as a big Broadway queen, and gets to sing an aria called "Heil Myself." Brooks described it as "Hitler's big Ethel Merman number."

It's rare that a perfect gem of comedy can be made even better with the addition of more material. But "Heil Myself" brings so much to the table that it's now hard to imagine "Springtime for Hitler" without it. It's at least as funny as the main theme, and it sets up the satisfying return to that theme in the finale. It also contains some of Brooks' most inspired couplets:

Everything I do I do for you-ooh!

If you're lookin' for a war, here's World War Two!

The 2005 film The Producers -- the movie version of the musical -- is disappointing in several respects, but it does have its moments. It contains the definitive "Springtime for Hitler," including "Heil Myself." (Brooks did shorten the number slightly for the film, omitting the "Fuhrer is causing a furor" section, but little is lost. For a sense of how the number looked on Broadway, this bootleg is reasonably watchable.)

Here's the number as presented in the 2005 film:

Mel Brooks has always said that he considered it part of his life's work to make Hitler look ridiculous, to make people laugh at him. "It's the only way to get even," he said in one interview.

The Producers was Mel Brooks' first film, and for the last forty years he's been accused of bad taste. Something about its specific premise made it definitive of his work, partly because it was a story about two guys who put on a show which is in bad taste. But in 1968, Brooks wasn't ready for a magnum opus, and that's why the 2001 incarnation is, for me, a richer piece of work. In 2001, Brooks has a lot of fun with the audience-within-the-show and its ongoing denunciations of Max Bialystock, bellowing things about his work which have been bellowed about Brooks' own work all along.

It seemed strange to see him lapping up all those Tony Awards: What was once shockingly subversive was now being eagerly fawned over by a pretty posh crowd. But then I recalled that the 1968 film won Brooks an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It was considered a surprising and offbeat choice. That screenplay was the work of a TV comedy writer desperately trying to establish himself as a filmmaker, an emerging talent. But with Brooks' entire film career behind him -- and in a South Park age of shocking irreverence which he helped to create -- he can't rely on the shock of Nazi jokes. So the musical Producers winds up being a titanic tribute to his talent, and the talent of his collaborators. Since it couldn't coast on shock, it had to coast on being a beautiful, hilarious, expertly crafted comedy.

In Berlin, where apparently it could coast (or sink) on shock, The Producers has been enthusiastically received by critics, and greeted with standing ovations from audiences. I'm not sure what the connection is, but The Guardian points out that the week it opened, a former Berlin police officer was fined for walking into the city's Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and lopping off Hitler's head.