“I’m ashamed of it to this day”: the “horrible” scene Mel Brooks called his most misunderstood
Unlike many comedians, Mel Brooks never felt the need to intentionally antagonise or deliberately offend anyone in an effort to maintain his position near the top of the rib-tickling pile.
If anything, it’s the opposite. The veteran has increasingly bemoaned both the over-policing that goes on in modern comedy and the performers who aim for shock and awe above genuine laughs, and the veteran has navigated a seven-decade career without becoming a frequent visitor to near-the-knuckle.
There was only one joke he deemed too far for Blazing Saddles, and he was probably right. However, the studio behind the 1974 classic would have disagreed, since there were more than a few anxious suits in the boardroom questioning why they’d allowed him to create something they found so shocking.
On the plus side, that was hardly uncharted territory for Brooks. He’d been through the exact same thing with The Producers, which was close to being buried entirely until it found a vocal ally in Peter Sellers, who played a huge part in securing the picture a nationwide theatrical release, which culminated in an Academy Award win for ‘Best Original Screenplay’.
Even at the time, the filmmaker was clear about the mandate behind the film. It had only been a little over 20 years since the end of World War II, and he was coming under fire from all corners for making Adolf Hitler such a central part of the story. From his perspective, the creative impetus was clear: since nobody felt brave enough to openly mock Nazism in a mainstream comedy, why couldn’t he be the first?
When it came to the title track of the play-within-a-play inside The Producers, Brooks never shook off those mixed feelings that had gripped him since the moment he first conceived the idea. “It was in horrible taste,” he confessed to Fresh Air. “It was in execrable taste. I’m ashamed of it to this day, but I do like the juxtaposition of those two textures.”
Despite admitting that part of him remained ashamed that he’d mined Hitler for comedy, won an Oscar for it, and successfully launched his Hollywood career, the EGOT-winning legend then insisted that, despite his personal feelings of ongoing shame, the entire ‘Springtime for Hitler’ sequence remained largely understood.
“What is my most misunderstood, or misinterpreted theme?” he pondered. “Vulgarity, or bad taste. I use it, therefore I’m painted with that brush.” He was adamant that throughout his career, critics had never understood that the reason he embraced bad taste comedy was that it was and remains “a wonderful device for unearthing truth that is all around and evoking laughter.”
Specifically citing the overhead shot of the swastika used in the ‘Springtime for Hitler’ sequence, he branded those accusations of being a bad taste player as “the bane of my existence,” explaining that “it was a very important point in a very important musical in a very important story.”
He felt everyone misunderstood the point, which he used solely as a means “to illuminate” an issue that he didn’t feel equipped to tackle with a straight face.
