Just in case you aren’t a Mel Brooks fan, “The Producers” is a dark comedy of his from 1968. He wrote and directed the film, which starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as a failed Broadway producer and timid accountant out to milk a sure-fire flop for money. The play they choose, “Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgaden” is an unexpected hit, and the two inevitably end up in prison for the whole scheme.
The 2005 film, adapted from a 2001 Broadway musical based on Brooks’s film, shares many of the weaknesses of the original. The beginning is rough and not very engaging, and the ending seems to drag on for past the curtain call. And some of the changes from the original weren’t too kind, either. The theatrical aspect intensifies the already one-dimensional characters, zooming in way too close. Matthew Broderick, who plays Leopold Bloom the accountant, is trying incredibly hard to be Gene Wilder, to be hysterical in exactly the same way. I cringed at the beginning, unconvinced that he is the right choice for Bloom. As the insanity ebbs in his character and we get to see his dreams and lusts and whatnot, Broderick stretches out in the role and fills it up with the same dead-pan charm he had as Ferris Bueller, if more twitchy.
The intensity of Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock works to his advantage. I giggled indulgently at his portrayal of the sleazy, cowardly pervert whose glory days on Broadway had left him with a good bit of superiority. He made the character more lovable than Zero Mostel had. Will Ferrell makes a forgettable appearance as the Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind, complete with birds that creepily jumped onto a musical number on his roof. One white pigeon, aptly named Adolf, mechanically saluted him with a wing whenever his name was mentioned.
The 2005 adaptation caught some heat for Uma Thurman’s portrayal of Swedish knockout Ulla, but I think she deviated enough from the original character. She is sassy and convincingly Swedish, which can’t be said for the bland 1968 Ulla, who I only remember for her penchant to take dancing breaks for her secretary job. Ulla even chooses to get together with Bloom by the end, rather than sell herself to Bialystock for a chance to dance whimsically by a desk.
The old-school slapstick comedy and dialogue are heavy-handed, but that’s what makes the film work. Each tweak to the plot is more ridiculous than the last, and I was constantly being surprised by some small, added element. The execution of the big musical number, the only scene from “Springtime for Hitler” shown in this version, is done better than the original, and the ending is much less dark. It’s hard to top a cult classic, but the remake of “The Producers” is not a flop.
