Brooks DVD will produce lots of laughs

Back in the day, as they say, I was a big fan of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner — long before either one was a movie director.

This was when I was growing up in L.A. County, in the black-and-white, "2,000-Year-Old Man" good ol' days.

So, in 1968, when a little-publicized film called "The Producers" came to a local theater, and the ad said it was written and directed by Mel Brooks, I was first in line.

The movie was hilarious. And it still is.

This is Brooks before he went in the direction of his off-the-wall live-action cartoons, which began with "Blazing Saddles."

"The Producers" has a story and real characters, and it won Brooks the Oscar for best screenplay.

And now, it's finally on DVD!

— "The Producers" (MGM, 1968, not rated, $24.98). Wild-eyed, bombastic, over-the-top Zero Mostel — a one-of-a-kind actor if ever there was one — plays a down-on-his-luck New York theatrical producer. He whiles away his time romancing geriatric women who have no lives but plenty of money to invest in his woeful productions.

When mild-mannered, wigged-out accountant Gene Wilder (in his second film) arrives on the scene, he inadvertently inspires Mostel with a sure-fire moneymaking scheme: Collect way too much money from investors and then mount a sure-fire flop; the investors won't be looking for profits, and when the play closes, Mostel and Wilder can keep all the leftover cash.

The play? A Busby Berkeley-inspired musical, "Springtime for Hitler," with hippy-dippy Dick Shawn in the title role and written by crazed ex-Nazi Kenneth Mars.

Dark, edgy and as zany as they come, "The Producers" is a riot from start to finish, and Mostel and Wilder are a hysterical team — "hysterical" being the operative word here.

The bonuses are also good, dominated by Brooks who tells some outrageous stories about the film's genesis and production, but plenty of other cast and crew members are here as well — including the normally reclusive Wilder (with bright orange hair)!

Extras: Widescreen, making-of documentaries, trailers, deleted scene, etc.