The film opens with a washed-up theatre producer, Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel), trying to charm rich old women into fronting money for his next venture. Making an unwanted intrusion is Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) in a custom-built part as Bialystock's accountant - nervous, hesitant and hysterical, mollified only by his security blanket and Bialystock's rictus smile. As Bloom works to hide a bit of fraudulent bookkeeping he muses that a producer could make a lot more money with a flop than a hit.

DID YOU KNOW?
	Gene Wilder performed in Mother Courage with Anne Bancroft, who introduced him to her then boyfriend (and later husband) Mel Brooks   Mel Brooks won the 1968 Academy Award for best original screenplay for The Producers

Bialystock jumps on this throwaway remark, and after wooing Bloom, the pair set out on the surprisingly difficult task of producing a sure-fire Broadway disaster. First, a stinker of a script: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden, written by a mad ex-Nazi pigeon fancier who spends the whole film wearing his soldier's helmet. Next, Bialystock launches himself into "little old lady land", exchanging hundreds of 50% stakes in the production for cheques made out to "Cash" ("That's a funny name for a play," remarks one white-haired coquette).

The play's prospects seem doomed as they rope in a camp director, and stage open casting calls for singing and dancing Hitlers. They find their leading man in Lorenzo St DuBois (known as LSD) as he performs a psychedelic flower-power love song. And that's not to mention the outrageous 'traditional' costumes and high-kicking, goose-stepping chorus line. How could anything possibly go right?