Mel Brooks is remembering his first musical. It was Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" with Ethel Merman. He was 9 years old.
"I'll never forget all those gorgeous songs and those gorgeous lyrics — 'You're the Top' and 'All Through the Night,' " says the 77-year-old Brooks. "And I said to my Uncle Joe, who took me there, I said, 'Uncle Joe, when I grow up, that's what I want to do. I just want to write songs.' And I did. I got to write them."
But Uncle Joe probably never imagined that his Jewish nephew from Brooklyn would create a smash hit called "The Producers," in which a crafty impresario named Max Bialystock stages a musical that glorifies a gay Fuehrer.
"Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party," goes the anthem "Springtime for Hitler."
Not exactly like rhyming Tower of Pisa with Mona Lisa, but this is the guy who made "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein."
So before you go calling the P.C. police on Brooks, it's important to know that "The Producers," which won a record 12 Tony Awards in 2002, is really a parody of his profession. In the story, Bialystock and sidekick Leo Bloom intend to stage a flop, then abscond to Rio with the money Bialystock raised from little old ladies he wooed ("wooed" being a big fat euphemism). But critics hail their show as a "satiric masterpiece," and their get-rich-quick scheme falls apart.
In real life, "The Producers" is a satiric masterpiece, but its author has hardly lost his pants. Three years after the musical opened, it has become a cultural phenomenon.
Not only is "The Producers" the most successful show on the Great White Way — with an average gross of about $1.3 million per week — but Brooks and "Producers" director Susan Stroman are working on a film that will star original Broadway leads Nathan Lane (Bialystock) and Matthew Broderick (Bloom).
Brooks expects Stroman will be nominated for an Oscar — "no matter what." And he may be right.
The irony is that "The Producers" has already been a film.
He directed it, in 1968, with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and it's now recognized as a comedic gem. But Brooks, who is immodest enough to say "The Producers" is the best musical comedy since "Guys and Dolls," is also modest enough to say that Stroman has the "visual sense" to improve his work.
And perhaps only Brooks — an icon of cool who recently played himself on a "Producers"-inspired season of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" — has the chutzpah to make what may be the first movie-turned-into-a-musical-turned-back-into-a-movie.
In a telephone interview from his Los Angeles film office, Brooks tossed off trivia about his Oscar-winning wife of 39 years, Anne Bancroft; her "Graduate" co-star Dustin Hoffman; and his latest musical project ("Young Frankenstein"). Punctuating his comments with you bets and awws, he comes off like a sweet grandfatherly type with a steel-proof recollection of names and details.
Ego? Oh, gosh, yes. But Brooks is talented and charming enough to get away with it.
Take his assessment of why "The Producers" is such a hit.
"It's smart," he says. "Audiences go and they see a comedy and unconsciously they are saying, 'Gee, I'm smarter than that. I knew that was coming. I could do better than that. Those jokes are not funny.' Simple, hard-working audiences feel superior to the stuff they are seeing."
But not with his show. Just thinking about it gets Brooks' trademark rasp a bit raspier.
"They come and see 'The Producers,' and they say, 'Oh, hey, I never saw that coming! I never saw that coming!' And they love that. They love that you can surprise them with wit and physical comedy and stuff that they never dreamed could happen."
And in comedy, timing is everything.
"I think (audiences) were probably fed up with Andrew Lloyd Webber songs and heavy, dark music, and maybe they wanted some of the old-fashioned Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Gershwin stuff that I've delivered.
"There hasn't been a musical comedy in a long time," he says, emphasizing the comedy part. " 'The Lion King' is a great show. It's a feast. It's a veritable feast for the eye," he says. "But the mind does kind of starve to death while you are watching it. There's very little to think about."
This is true.
But according to Brooks, he can't take all the credit for creating the tale of Bialystock and Bloom. Seems that Brooks' first showbiz job, at 22, was in the office of a New York producer not unlike Bialystock, "with the old homburg and the alpaca coat.
"He'd raise a little more money than he needed, knowing the show would probably be a flop. So the IRS or nobody ever asked him any questions. He'd put on a play for like 14 or 15 thousand dollars, and he'd raise 25, and he'd live on that 10 grand."
And how did this guy raise the cash? (An image of little old ladies dancing with walkers should come to mind if you know the musical version of "The Producers.")
"He had an audition couch, a leather couch, and it went from audition couch to angel couch," Brooks says. "These little old ladies who came from all over New York to invest their thousand dollars in his latest play, which was always named 'Cash' for some reason. . . .
"He'd make love to them. And they were never angry when the play folded and they lost their money. He was giving them something a lot more important. They were in their 70s and 80s, and he was giving them that wonderful attention that they wanted. That wonderful attention that they were getting nowhere, not even from their children. And Max was giving it to them, and they loved it. He treated them like they were 22-year-olds in the back of a car."
Now what would Uncle Joe say about that?
Brooks won't name his late mentor, says the guy still has living relatives — and it's not clear whether "Max" is an actual name or a slight lapse into the fictional world of the play.
At any rate, Brooks wrote the '40s-era story as a memoir, but it had so much dialogue, a colleague told him it should be a play. Eventually, the script became the screenplay for Brooks' first feature film.
Working with Mostel, Brooks says, was "heaven and hell.
"He could be wicked and cruel, and he could be almost sweet, loving, kind, generous. The great thing about Zero was that he was uniquely gifted. He was really, truly talented, more talented than any actor except for Sid Caesar that I have ever worked with."
As for the old story that Brooks cast Hoffman in the first "Producers," Brooks says it's true.
"He was going to be Franz Liebkind, the neo-Nazi playwright, and one night he called and said, 'You know, Mel, you won't believe this. But Mike Nichols called me and he wants to cast me as Benjamin Braddock in 'The Graduate.' I said, 'Are you crazy?'
"I said, 'Oh, go out there!' I know the script well because Anne is going to be Mrs. Robinson. You'll never make it. You are a mutt! ' "
Brooks laughs at the thought of the young upstart, who has an affair with Bancroft's character in the movie. "I said, Ohmygod. I said, 'Dustin, maybe we are related — through my wife!' "
So what is Brooks' next move?
"When I grow up, I think I'd like to write another musical," he jokes, echoing his youthful observation to his Uncle Joe. In fact, he says, he's already adapting "Young Frankenstein" with "Producers" co-librettist Thomas Meehan. "We have already written nine songs," he says. "So we are flying away."
If we are lucky, Mel Brooks may never grow up.
Wendell Brock writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
E-mail: wbrock@ajc.com