The Producers (Widescreen Edition)
by Susan Stroman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Gary Beach, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Uma Thurman, Will FerrellDirector: Susan Stroman
Brand: NBC Universal
Cinematographer: Charles Minsky
Producer: Amy Herman
Producer: Jonathan Sanger
Producer: Leah Zappy
Producer: Mel Brooks
Writer: Mel Brooks
Writer: Thomas Meehan
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 134 minutes
Published: 2006-05-01
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-16
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of The Producers (Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: Tres gay!
Summary: 5 Stars
When this brilliant satire of Broadway musicals came out in the sixties it announced two things: (1) enough time has passed so that we can now laugh at the holocaust, and (2) we are OUT. (Well, not me since I was not only straight, but straight arrow. But, you know...those other guys.)
I remember it well. The incomparable Mel Brooks not only directed the 1968 production starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, he wrote the script and the music and the lyrics. As a young man I was not into musicals and certainly not GAY musicals, even if the gay and the musical were making fun of themselves. But, somehow I liked it. It was brilliant in a strange way. It was satire, and I always loved and respected satire. The music was not perhaps on the same level as Rogers and Hammerstein and the choreography was nothing special as musicals go. But the show within a show, a classic theatrical device, and the tricky gay jokes within tricky gay jokes were wonderfully done. Brooks made fun of gay Broadway while at the same time celebrated that Broadway and Hollywood staple: two guys who were not gay (wink, wink) going through a great adventure together. And it didn't hurt that one was a bit older than the other so that we might see one as a father figure...
What a heady time it was. How free was the artistic and street expression. These were indeed the sixties when peace guided the planets and love steered the stars, and the closet was a place finally only for ready-to-wear and wire hangers proliferating like bunnies.
Oscar Wilde showed in The Importance of Being Ernest that the proper intent for a comedic stage production was to simultaneously flatter and satirize the audience. The audience is therefore massaged and titillated at the same time. The secret is to make the satire so subtle that they do not realize consciously they are being satirized. That was the genius of The Importance and that is the genius of The Producers.
In addition to the audience, Brooks satirizes nearly every aspect of the theater. The producers of course are satirized, but since they are also the stars of the show, that is okay, and real producers would love the script (and perhaps front money for it!). The Nazis are satirized. ("Don't be stupid, be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi party.") Gays are satirized. (The Indian chief, the sailor, the carpenter, etc. like costumed guys from the popular "YMCA" song traipse up and down Roger Debris's staircase.) Straights are satirized. Production numbers are satirized. (You've got to love the choreography of the hundreds of little old ladies in their walkers and their blue and white dresses dancing in the New York streets.) In short, the mad satirical genius of Mel Brooks finds full flower.
This production starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick and directed by Susan Stroman compares favorably with the original; but as usual most people would say the original was better (e.g., check the votes at the Internet Movie Database). But comparisons are odious, bad manners and certain to offend. And anyway I need to revisit the original to make a fair comparison. Regardless this movie is uproarious and provides abundantly the kind of diversion that makes time fly.
Nathan Lane, who also reprised Zero Mostel's Pseudolus in the stage production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," is hilarious as Max Bialystock, the producer who finances his shows by seducing little old ladies, while Broderick is boyishly cute as Leo Bloom the accountant who wants to be a producer. The outrageous and very funny plot develops when Bloom comes to do Max's books and remarks that sometimes more money can be made with a flop than a hit. Max immediately has a brain storm. He will purposely make a huge flop, and with creative accounting from Leo, they will both make lots of money! To guarantee success (failure!) they will pick the worse script they can find, hire the worse direction and the worst performers, etc.
Needless to say the best laid plans of mice and men often do go astray! as they lament in the song "Where did we go right?" (Not performed in this production, but in the original.) The script they choose is "Springtime for Hitler," penned by a crazed neo-Nazi named Franz Liebkind played extravagantly by Will Farrell. Uma Thurman plays Ulla the tall dumb blond that Bloom falls in love with. Thurman is fairly ordinary in the part, but in the scene where Bloom sings, "That Face" what the camera emphasizes hilariously and deliciously are her legs, and Uma Thurman does have legs. An irony (and of course the whole production is replete with ironies) is that a relatively tall actress like Thurman misses out on a lot of parts because she is too tall for the leading man. Here however part of the fun is had from the fact that she towers over Matthew Broderick.
Notable is the performance by Gary Beach as Roger Debris the gay director who steals the show within the movie when he takes the part of Hitler.
Summary of The Producers (Widescreen Edition)
Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick return to their award-winning roles in the hilariously funny film of the record-breaking Broadway smash-hit. Scheming producer Max Bialystock (Lane) and his mousy accountant, Leo Bloom (Broderick), discover that under the right circumstances they could make more money by producing a Broadway flop than they can with a hit. But what will they do when their sure-to-offend musical becomes a surprise sensation? Co-starring sexy Uma Thurman and comedy genius Will Ferrell, The Producers is a fun-filled, side-splitting comedy. Starring: Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell, Gary Beach, Roger Bart, Eileen Essell, Michael McKean, David Huddleston, Debra Monk, Andrea Martin, Jon Lovitz Directed by: Susan StromanSimilar DVD Movies
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