He said, “Mr. Brooks, the fountain normally goes up to ten or twelve feet, but if necessary, I can get it up to twenty-five.”
“Great,” I said. “When I give you the signal, push it up to twenty-five!”
I was going to have them skip with joy all around the fountain celebrating their new enterprise, but I was afraid that the water from the fountain that was spilling over onto the ledge would make their skipping dangerous. Especially for Zero, who had a bad leg. So I gave Zero a carton of ice cream and had Bloom skip around the fountain and every time he passed Bialystock, Max would shove a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.
This on-location night shoot turned out to be the very last scene we would be shooting. The last shot would be pointed up at Bialystock and Bloom with the white foaming waters of the glorious Lincoln Center fountain shooting up twenty-five feet in the air behind them, and the night sky above. I began to get worried because the sky was turning slightly lighter with each hour that we were filming. But luck was with us, and when I called “CUT! It’s a wrap!” the crew, the actors, everybody, burst into a great big cheer. We did it. We made The Producers.
* * *
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The Producers took eight weeks to film and cost $941,000. I brought it in at $35k under budget. Under budget—a phenomenon that stayed with me throughout my film career.
Joseph E. Levine saw the rough cut and had several changes he wanted to be made. But my brilliant lawyer snuck a little paragraph into the contract that read “The director, Mel Brooks, will receive final cut of the film.”
That means that nobody, including the studio, is allowed to change the final version of the movie. My ultimate protection, no one could change the movie but me. All thanks to my aforementioned lawyer, Alan U. Schwartz, whom I met after Your Show of Shows was finished and he did my contracts for pickup jobs like the Victor Borge and Andy Williams shows. We hit it off immediately; I loved my lawyer, and he was so supportive, cheering me up in those dark days of scattered employment, trying to keep my nose above water.
When I asked him, “What the hell is the U for in Alan U. Schwartz?”
He said with a big smile on his face, “It stands for United States Supreme Court Justice.”
That’s obviously a figment of his imagination. I think it stands for nothing. He probably just shoved it in there because he thought it looked more impressive to be a lawyer with a middle initial.
* * *
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I’d often go to lunch at a place called Chock full o’ Nuts. New York was sprinkled with them. There was one near Greenbaum, Wolff, and Ernst where Alan U. Schwartz was a fledgling lawyer. Chock full o’ Nuts had great sandwiches—chicken salad, tuna salad, cream cheese and walnut on raisin bread. Not to mention their famous Chock full o’ Nuts coffee. I’d often bring an extra sandwich and coffee up for Alan U. Schwartz.
Sometimes I’d get there before him and go to his office and misbehave. He caught me once when the phone rang and I answered, “Greenbaum, Wolff, and Ernst, what can’t we do for you?…I’m sorry, lady, we’re not ambulance chasers! We’re a classy firm that only handles big cases!”
He heard me as he was coming up the hall, but instead of being angry he burst into laughter. Alan has been my lawyer ever since. He went on to do great things and represent other well-known clients like famed playwright Tennessee Williams, of A Streetcar Named Desire; Peter Shaffer, who wrote great plays like Amadeus and Equus; and also the incredibly gifted Truman Capote. That “final cut” clause that he snuck into my first movie has stayed with me in every movie contract since then. I will forever be grateful. To this day Alan is still a very dear and close friend.
* * *
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We had a pre-release sneak-preview screening of The Producers at the Cherry Hill Cinema in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, right near the Pennsylvania border. Joe Levine was there with three or four associates in distribution. I was there with Alfa-Betty Olsen and her husband, David Miller, who by the way was a terrific actor and played Joseph Goebbels in the Hitler scenes in the movie.
When Dick Shawn as Hitler asks him, “Hey, baby. What’s happenin’？” David as Goebbels answers, “I just laid the morning propaganda forecast on the people.”
Hitler: “You’re puttin’ me on. What did they say?”
Goebbels: “I told the people we invaded England!”
Hitler: “Hey, that’s a groove, daddy. How’d we come out?”
Goebbels: “We beat ’em, baby!”