Lee Meredith in The Producers (1968)

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Before the Broadway show, before the Golden Globe-nominated remake, there was simply The Producers (1968). And it was damn good. Mel Brooks’s famous concoction, called “one of the funniest movies ever made” by Roger Ebert, stars Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, a washed-up theatre producer who’s informed by his accountant (Gene Wilder) that the pair can make a fortune by staging a surefire flop. Springtime for Hitler is born and the rest, as they say, is history. Fans of the legendary musical gag-fest shouldn’t have a hard time remembering that Lee Meredith’s vivacious performance was a large part of what made it great. Even without Mostel and Wilder’s wisecracking, watching Meredith shimmy around with her platinum-blonde tresses is worth every penny of the admission.