Influences
- Max Bialystock is named after the city of Białystok, Poland. A 'bialystoker' is a roll similar to a bagel.
- Leo Bloom is named for the protagonist of James Joyce's classic novel Ulysses, Leopold Bloom. Leo meets Max on June 16 (Bloomsday), the date on which Ulysses takes place. Bialystock at one point calls Leo "Prince Myshkin", the titular protagonist in Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot.
- In the search for "the worst play ever", Max reads aloud from one of the rejected manuscripts. It is the opening sentence of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, where Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed into a giant verminous bug, and Bialystock dismisses it as "too good". The book was also used as a joke in Mel Brooks' movie Spaceballs: "Prepare for Metamorphosis, are you ready Kafka?".
In a case of life imitating art, however, The Metamorphosis was produced on Broadway (1989), featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov as Gregor and René Auberjonois as Gregor's father. - Roger De Bris (pronounced "debris") is named for the Yiddish term for circumcision.
- Carmen Giya is named after the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, a popular car in production in 1968.
- The "singing Hitlers" at their audition sing a number of pieces. Mentioned or performed are Lilac Time, "A Wand'ring Minstrel I", "Beautiful Dreamer", and "Largo al factotum" ("della ... città" being all that is heard).
- Siegfried from the Siegfried Oath is the main character in The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner.
Read more about this topic: The Producers (1968 film)
Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology, fate . . . until we can actually live in a society where mothers and children genuinely matter, ours is an essentially powerless responsibility. Mothers carry out most of the work orders, but most of the rules governing our lives are shaped by outside influences.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)