Studio balked at casting Hitler in 'The Producers'

LOS ANGELES, May 16 (Reuters) If one of Hollywood's leading studios had its way, it would have been ''Springtime for Mussolini,'' not Hitler, or so says Mel Brooks.

With the DVD of the musical film version of ''The Producers'' released yesterday, the veteran writer-director reminisced about the struggle he had to get the original 1968 comedy made when he pitched the idea to Universal Pictures, then headed by legendary Hollywood powerhouse Lew Wasserman.

''Universal sent the scripts to Lew Wasserman and (the other executives) and they said, 'We love this movie,' but we just want to make one small change.' ''I said, 'Fine, what is it?' They said that instead of making a Broadway play about Adolf Hitler, make it about Mussolini instead because we couldn't possibly make a movie about Hitler,'' Brooks said in an interview with Reuters last week.

In the movie, a producer and his bookkeeper seize on the idea that they can make more money producing a flop than a hit because a flop would let them keep their investors' money.

In their search for the worst imaginable play, the two zero in on ''Springtime for Hitler,'' written by a deranged German pigeon fancier, which they see as a sure-fire failure.

Brooks, 79, said his reaction to Universal's request was a simple: '''What, are you crazy?' But they insisted they could not make a picture about Hitler. I was going to entitle the film 'Springtime for Hitler.' So I took it to Joseph E Levine of Embassy Pictures, and he said, 'You want Hitler, you got Hitler. Just don't call it 'Springtime for Hitler.' So I came up with the ironic title of 'The Producers.''' ''Springtime for Hitler'' remained the name of the play in the movie.

The 1968 film won a best original screenplay Oscar for Brooks, who based his idea on a producer he worked for who really did ''make passionate love to little old ladies on their way to the cemetery and then ask them for money.'' Brooks turned his film comedy six years ago into a hit Broadway musical, which he adapted as a film last year.

REUTERS SI SSC1052