The Chris Moeller Archives

Don't be stupid, be a "smarty." Come and join the Nazi party.

I wholeheartedly endorse "The Producers" on the big screen. It's old-school entertainment at its finest-- loud and obnoxious, without a trace of nuance. It's got big tits, campy Queers, crazy Nazis, and nympho grannies. It's spectacular.

I've never seen Mel Brooks' wildly successful musical, starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (who appear here,) but I did see the original film starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder maybe a decade ago, before most of the songs were added. My recollections of it are vague. According to Roger Ebert, our national film critic laureate, that makes me more qualified than even him to judge this film upon its actual merits.

Some of Susan Stroman's 2005 version was recognizable to me from the 1968 version. Writer Brooks was obligated to maintain the original sequence of Bialystock and Bloom's meeting, the sniveling accountant Bloom's (Broderick) attack of hysterics, and his classic line upon being splashed with water. "I'm hysterical... I'm hysterical." (Splash) "I'm wet... I'm wet... I'm hysterical and I'm wet."

The penultimate moment of the show-- the premiere of the "Springtime for Hitler" production, also remains intact, of course, but along the way, surprises abound. Bloom has been given an endearing musical number in which he trades his empty life on the accountants' assembly line for a career on Broadway. ("I'm not going into the toilet, Mr. Marks, I'm going into showbusiness!") There is a truly inspired number in which Bialystock courts his little old ladies/financiers, and they use their walkers as percussion instruments. Unlike Ebert, I found the original film to be too raw, but as a musical, Brooks' clever narrative has zest to spare. The songs, written by Brooks, are inspired and hilarious.

Will Ferrell channels too much of Kenneth Mars' original characterization of the neo-Nazi playwright, but like all of the other performers, he's holding nothing in reserve. Uma Thurman, as the buxom, singing and dancing Swede, Ulla, is a revelation... Well, not a revelation, really. We should all be aware by now of her status as the one true, timeless actress of our time, as exotic and jawdroppingly beautiful as any that have come before.

I watch Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" with some consistency, but its been a while since I've seen "Blazing Saddles," "Silent Movie," or his other gems. (Those actually might be the only gems.) I'm jolted with each viewing by just how crude they are-- and how liberating! One critic has suggested that "The Producers" would have more bite in 2005 and '06 if "Springtime for Hitler" was replaced by "Springtime for Terri Schiavo." It's true that the Nazis are an easier target now than they were in the 1960s when WWII was fresher in our memories. Still, I think there's some revisionism at play with that theory. We were already pretty safe from the Nazis by the late '60s. And I suspect that the 'over-the-top' gay characterizations of this film seem more jarring to audiences today than did those of the '68 version. (By the way, they're hysterical.) A woman once famously confronted Brooks after a screening of one of his films--. "Mr. Brooks, I found your film to be completely vulgar." "Madam," he replied, "My movie rises below vulgarity."

The nation's critics, as a whole, are almost universally split on "The Producers." It's earned a 51% fresh rating on that invaluable film site, Rottentomatoes.com. You can chalk up some of the prejudice against it to the fact that the film's director is a choreographer by trade. It's hard enough for a female director to gain notoriety or respect in Hollywood, let alone a first-timer and an outsider to the Guild. Many critics surely witnessed Lane and Broderick first as Bialystock and Bloom on Broadway, so they're seeing the act on celluloid from a different perspective than I am. Still, the other trends of their tastes and distastes are too apparent to accept the honesty of their verdicts. The dramatic story arc is not the "end all, be all" that Hollywood and half her critics consciously or unconsciously contend it to be. Musicals are not always exercises in frivolity, and comedy is no laughing matter.

posted by CM @ 10:18 PM