DON'T confront evil with rhetoric, urges Mel Brooks in the documentary that accompanies this comedy classic from 1968. Ridicule it instead. It's a philosophy at the heart of a film that surely retains the crown for the most glorious celebration of tastelessness on celluloid.

Mel's in-your-face approach isn't to everyone's taste and there are certainly times when he labours a joke too relent- lessly. But the central set-piece, the kitschy "Springtime for Hitler" sequence, redeems all.

Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are wonderfully over the top as conmen who hatch a scam to trick gullible old ladies into financing a Broadway show that's bound to flop... but turns out to be a runaway success.