Hollywood and Broadway have been heavily into cross-fertilization over the last few years, and with the likes of "The Lion King" packing tourists into Great White Way outposts it seems only natural that one of the most notorious musicals never to play Broadway finally seems destined to open there.

Mel Brooks is getting ready to bring "Springtime for Hitler," the underlying subject of his hilarious 1968 feature, "The Producers," to Broadway. The movie was about Max, a crooked producer with a plan to overfinance a can't-fail-to-miss musical. The idea was that after romancing cash from assorted widows, he would put on the play, watch it crash and burn, and pocket the unspent money. Unfortunately, the play, a celebratory musical about Hitler, was a smash hit, ruining Max.

The movie featured hilarious snippets from the play, including numbers based on the title song, and another, "Prisoners of Love."

Pub Date: 4/16/99