The Producers (1967 film) Glazier budgeted the film at $1 million, and sought financiers. Half the money came from philanthropist Louis Wolfson, who liked the idea of laughing at a dictator, and the remainder, along with the distribution, was arranged by Joseph E. Levine of Embassy Pictures. Levine's only condition was to change the title, as he felt many distributors would not carry a picture named "Springtime for Hitler." Brooks renamed it "The Producers," considering it ironic as "these guys are anything but producers." As Brooks "couldn't think of anybody to direct it," eventually he decided to take the task for himself, even though
The Producers (1967 film) to cheat theatrical investors by devising a designed-to-fail tasteless Broadway musical about Hitler only 23 years after the end of World War II. Among the most harsh critics were Stanley Kauffmann in "The New Republic," who wrote that "the film bloats into sogginess" and Pauline Kael who called it "amateurishly crude" in "The New Yorker." On the other hand, others considered the film to be a great success. "Time" magazine's reviewers wrote that the film was "hilariously funny" but pointed out that "the film is burdened with the kind of plot that demands resolution" but unfortunately "ends in a whimper