A sneaky producer and continuously nervous accountant team up to make a huge profit on creating the worst play on Broadway.
Old school comedy! The movie that spawned the play that birthed the movie! This was truly a classic comedy - super quotable lines, imitable characters, and the time-tried combination of an aggressive anti-hero and his twitchy sidekick. Who couldn't love it.
This movie redeemed Gene Wilder for me. I have seen him as Willy Wonka and vowed I would despise him for the rest of my life. I saw him as young Frankenstein and it was affirmed that I would never get that screaming, shouting, frantic voice out of my ears. Then, I saw him as a producer/accountant. He was adorable. I think it was because he only shouted twice in the movie and for a very short time. Zero was the funniest, though, of course, I just love him in an early scene where he tries to calm down a hysterical Gene Wilder by tossing water at him and grinning. They had chemistry most actors only dream of sharing.
It was a great length at a clipped hour and a half, so the style of humor had not gotten stale. It isn't everyone's cup of tea, I guess, there's a story-line woven throughout where Zero's character romances elderly ladies for cash so he can produce his plays. That might disturb some. It's a kind of bawdy humor, not "sexual," per say, like today's comedies (Knocked Up, The Ugly Truth), but it uses the idea of sex for humor. Regardless, it's very Mel Brooks, a very well-done comedy, and those lines will be in your brain forever, just waiting for the opportunity to be spouted off.
