Hoylake Community Cinema: The Producers

Musical Comedy at Hoylake Community Cinema

Star Turn from Gene Wilder in Mel Brooks’ Film

Screening of The Producers (PG)

Friday 27 February

Doors open at 6:30 pm, the film starts at 7:30 pm

At The Parade, Hoylake Community Centre, Hoyle Road, Hoylake

Licensed bar and homemade snacks available

Tickets cost £5, available online at www.hoylakecommunitycinema.co.uk;
From Urbane, Market Street, Hoylake; Staacks, Banks Road, West Kirby; The Parade, Hoylake Community Centre, Hoyle Road; or on the door on the night

Hoylake Community Cinema’s new year got off to a flying start with a sell-out screening of Cinema Paradiso. Cinema spokesman Mark Howard said: “We were totally overwhelmed by the response to this film. We had to turn people away at the door, which isn’t something we want to do, but we have to comply the Centre’s health and safety policy. We sincerely apologise to those who couldn’t get in and advise early booking online to avoid disappointment.”

When Mel Brooks’ The Producers, which is the next film, was first screened in 1968 it was not an immediate hit. It was still only 20-odd years since the end of the Second World War and nerves were still sensitive, so a film revolving around “Springtime for Hitler” was always going to cause a stir. However, The Producers is now acknowledged as one of the funniest movies ever made.

The film is set in New York in 1959. Theatrical producer Max Bialystock was once the toast of Broadway. Now he lives in his seedy office, cadging cash contributions from wealthy old ladies in exchange for sexual favours. Even worse, he’s reduced to wearing a cardboard belt! Max’s new accountant, Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), the soul of honesty, suggests that Max produces a hit to try to recoup his losses, but Max knows that it’s too late for that. Offhandedly, Leo muses that if Max found investors for a flop, then he could legally keep all the extra money. Suddenly, Max’s eyes light up ‒ and in that moment, Leo Bloom is gloriously corruptible. “I want everything I’ve ever seen in the movies!” cries Leo as Max embraces him. Together, Max and Leo conspire to select the worst play, the worst playwright, the worst director, and the worst actor to collaborate on their guaranteed flop. That play is “Springtime for Hitler”, “a delightful romp…starring Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun”. The playwright is Franz Liebkind (Kenneth Mars), an unreconstructed Nazi who, in drunken delirium, insists that Hitler was a better painter than Churchill ‒ “He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon, two coats!” What could possibly go wrong – or right?

Tickets for The Producers cost £5 and are available from gift shop Urbane, Market Street, Hoylake; Staacks, Banks Road, West Kirby; The Parade, Hoylake Community Centre; on the door on the night; and online at www.hoylakecommunitycinema.co.uk. Doors open at 6.30 pm; the film starts at 7.30 pm. There is a licensed bar selling wines and beers, as well as tea and coffee, and also homemade snacks. There will be a quiz, organised by quiz-master Julian Priest, after the screening. Hoylake Community Centre has full disabled access and is induction loop enabled for the hard of hearing.