“It’s absolutely amazing, but under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than he could with a hit.” Thus spoke accountant Leo Bloom, played in The Producers (1968) by the much-mourned Gene Wilder. In Bloom’s thought experiment, a dishonest producer would raise a vast sum by selling the profits of a Broadway show many times over. Provided the Broadway show was a flop, nobody would come looking for their share of the profits and the fraudsters could retire to Rio. If the show was a hit, of course, “well, then you’d go to jail”. That was where Bloom and his partner Max Bialystock ended up: their musical, Springtime for Hitler, was far too good.
“这很不可思议，可是在适当的情况下，制作人如果出一部烂戏，反而比制作一部好戏赚更多。”利奥•布鲁姆(Leo Bloom)在《金牌制作人》(The Producers,1968)中如是说，饰演该角色的是深受人们缅怀的吉恩•怀尔德(Gene Wilder)。根据布鲁姆的思维实验，一个不诚实的制作人可以通过把一部百老汇戏剧的收益夸大好多倍，然后从中大赚一笔。倘若这部戏搞砸了，没人会去查看自己应获利润的份额，而骗子可以退隐里约热内卢。当然，如果这部戏火了，“那么你就得坐牢”。而这正是布鲁姆和他的伙伴麦克斯•比亚韦斯托克( Max Bialystock)的下场——他们制作的音乐剧《希特勒的春天》(Springtime for Hitler)实在太成功了。