| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
White Supremacy for Beginners
Gleefully-funny movie about bad-taste and White supremacy that is a perfect example of bad taste itself.
Neurotic self-loathing and emotional aggrandizement are mercilessly-parodied and enjoyed as we enter the weird showbiz world of Broadway stage productions and the self-involved theatrical angels who support it - along with the greed, sex-obsession and self-delusion of producers who decide what should be presented to what they consider is a gullible public.
What makes this film work so well, when its subject matter could have so easily gone wrong and produced a disaster along the lines of the worst play ever written
, is the performances of Zero MOSTEL and Gene WILDER - the perfect odd couple. As well as Kenneth MARS as the living embodiment of Nazism and Dick SHAWN as the perfect hippy flower-child, who has absolutely no idea that the musical comedy he is appearing in is about the greatest evil perpetrated by mankind and that he is playing the most hated man in history. For him, as for many others, the last act of the play “Springtime for Hitler” is depressing not because of this character’s inherent evil, but because the war is not going well for his eponymous character!
The real fun here, of course, comes from being invited to dance on Hitler’s grave while laughing your head off! If that’s tasteless, then you have no sense of humor worth worrying about. Where it partly fails is in being too ad-libbed and not disciplined enough, but: “Don’t be stupid, be a smartie, come and join the Nazi party” is an absurdly-classic line of dialog that all-too-eerily echoes the peer-group pressure world of those who cannot think for themselves.
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