Lost Classics: THE PRODUCERS (2005)
- Ryan C. Tittle
- Mar 7
- 7 min read
In the films I’ve included in this off-and-on series I’ve been calling “Lost Classics,” I have generally picked films that were ignored in their time, but there is some highlight where there is sufficient quality to warrant a watch or two. I’m not really suggesting they are film classics (although they could be classics of their kind [e. g. Mailer’s Maidstone]). This week, it’s a little different. I don’t like the movie I’m rooting for, necessarily. I know it’s not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination and yet there is something in it that is impossible to ignore. The film I want to write about is The Producers—no, not the truly classic film from the late 1960s, but the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Mel Brooks co-wrote with Thomas Meehan (of Annie fame).
A little history before we begin: Mel Brooks became an Oscar-winner for his satirical screenplay for The Producers, a vehicle through which a Jewish comedian could deal with the devastation of the Shoah the only way he (and Chaplin) knew how: to make Adolph Hitler a figure of fun. There have been many discussions about the “taste” of the film. Some wonder if the satire is justified given the horror of the situation. But Brooks’ film has won that argument over time as a film has both a masterful plot and a biting edge that predated the writers of South Park in the impossibility of what Brooks was able to get away with.
about the creators
In the early years of our present century, Brooks adapted the film into a full-length musical that shattered box office statistics—a Broadway blockbuster. The stage version of The Producers is a perfect, old-fashioned musical—one that comes along now every fifteen to twenty years (The Book of Mormon being the most recent example). It is one of the longest running Broadway shows and it captured a moment where Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick were at their career-highs. Even with endless replacements in the original cast, The Producers was a rare thing: a bona fide hit that is actually well-written and is brilliantly directed by Susan Stroman.
Which brings us to the movie musical adaptation of the Broadway musical which was based on the 1967 movie—also co-written by Brooks, directed by Stroman, and starring Lane and Broderick—and yet, it is the kind of stage adaptation that serves as a blueprint for a film critics would call “too stagey.” Stroman is a fantastic director/choreographer. Her failures (Harry Connick, Jr.’s Thou Shalt Not) and her successes (John Weidman’s Contact) are equally interesting. Even when they don’t quite work, they are worth seeing. But, like Harold Prince and many before her, when she got her chance at making a big Hollywood musical movie, she played the route too safely. Her film of The Producers strives to sit next to other classic Hollywood musicals of the past on your Blu-Ray shelf and this strategy has bitten more folks than it has brought them successes. By the late 1960s—after Barbara Streisand’s miscast Mame—movie adaptations of Broadway musicals slowed down to a halt. It would not be for many years later that a film of a Broadway show could seem alive and real on the screen again. It just so happened to be that that film was Chicago, a pitch-perfect adaptation that was successful, partly, because it the libretto was already cinematic and conjured its scenes through framing devices, making the numbers perfect “music videos,” if you will.
about the movie
The Producers is no Chicago. It is a faithful (too faithful), opened-up recording of the Broadway show. Yes, there are slight changes, but the film feels like failed Hollywood musical films of the late ‘60s—it brings to mind memories of the Paint Your Wagon-era. Big, dumb movies from big, dumb musicals recorded as if it were for posterity in the Lincoln Center theatrical video archive. While the film is made in old-fashioned widescreen, it seldom uses it to any advantage. Stroman shows signs of a first-time film director when she uses mostly master shots and, apparently, could not find an editor who would tell her the thing was a two-ton walrus that needed a root canal.
Now that I’ve sufficiently brought the work down, let’s talk about reasons one should watch it. Unlike most bad adaptations of stage plays, we ought to be fully satisfied that there is a record of such a ground-breaking show. When I say ground-breaking, The Producers was tame given that South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut had opened a few years earlier, making this film hopelessly behind-the-times. Certainly, by the time Brooks co-wrote the screenplay, he was many years past his prime. By the time Spaceballs came around, it was clear his timing was off. Not only was the film released much too long after the first Star Wars films had come and gone, but there was just not the crispness and tightness of the comedy in The Producers or the even-more salacious Blazing Saddles. (Personally, I would argue that western and The Producers are Brooks’ only true astonishments, the rest being only so-so).
But, when I watched the film a few weeks ago, I couldn’t really pause the 2005 Producers or turn away. I saw it when it first came out with a buddy of mine. We had also seen O Brother, Where Art Thou? together and left both movies feeling like they were interesting failures. Now that decades have passed (and the Coen Bros. are no longer working together) I would place O Brother a little higher given that it is immensely quotable and seems to be the only reason you and I have bluegrass music in our collections. With The Producers, though, we left ultimately disappointed that so many talented people had wasted their time. There were moments we laughed, sure, but nothing earth-shattering.
And still, I can’t put it in the wastebin entirely. Take the opening moments, when Broadway patrons exit the opening and closing night of Max Bialystock’s Funny Boy (an adaptation of Hamlet—good joke) and declare that it’s “the worst show in town!” This, a surprise turn in an opening number, is the first big laugh of the musical and the movie and it’s extremely well-timed and delivered as we are prepared to have them hail it as a masterpiece. From there, Stroman’s stagey sets and stagey blocking take us on our voyage of long master-shot scenes, most of them barely trimmed into varying cuts. And yet, by the time you get to “Keep it Gay” (brilliantly performed by a cast headed by Gary Beach), you haven’t exactly regretted the time spent watching it.
Make no mistake: the 1967 Producers and the 2005 Producers are different beasts. In the film, Brooks’ comedy is almost mutilated by the introduction of a flower-power hippy winning the role of Hitler. While the film more than makes up for it by the time “Springtime for Hitler” rolls around, it was a product of the times—of the summer of love—and Brooks and Meehan rightly changed the stage role to better fit the writer (Kenneth Mars in the movie, Will Ferrell in the movie musical) even though the part is eventually taken over by the director in the musical (Frankly, Beach comes off better than both leads and he is as melodramatic with facial expressions as Lane).
about the leads
About the leads: Nathan Lane, like Ethel Merman before him, is much too big a personality for the screen. I have yet to see him in a motion picture where he comes off well, though there is some television material where he “works.” Otherwise, he’s a film sound technician’s worst nightmare. I’m not sure if he’s ever pulled back for the screen, except for some well-chosen roles in television (including the recent Melendez Bros. Netflix miniseries where Lane was the only reason to watch).
Broderick is a different animal. I’ve never seen such a plummeting fall in talent in a single actor. In his early career, he came off as a someone with a swagger in his Broadway productions of Neil Simon’s autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues and especially in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. With The Producers, he entered a late phase which I can only describe as full of meek, flaccid, washout characters. Still, this is perfect for the role of Leopold Bloom. But the schtick has served Broderick less well in subsequent performances. But which one comes out on top?
I can remember contemporary reviews of the movie musical where critics described the leads as dripping “flop-sweat.” One can tell Lane knows this is not going to work as you watch it. Therefore, Broderick comes off a little better and, while his musical segments are not as good as Lane’s, he plays them in an endearing and even tender way—especially when he gives up accountancy for producing and later when he pleads for Lane’s life at the inevitable trial for their fraud (a scheme involving a gaggle of little old lady backers, headed by Debra Monk in a cameo role).
reasons to watch
Reasons to watch: Will Ferrell’s performance is pitch-perfect even when hampered by Stroman’s safe direction. The expansion of the “Springtime” sequence highlighted by Stroman’s choreography and proof that she knew that number had to out-do the stage original (and it does). If you never got to see the original show, it’s a nice record of a moment of great stagecraft.
reasons to avoid
Reasons to avoid: Uma Thurman has never given even a passable performance without Quentin Tarantino directing her—her performance is as cloying and uninteresting as her Poison Ivy in the first Warner Bros. Batman franchise. A good half hour or more is wasted on her character, and in the end, the role could have been cut with no losses (except fewer female roles).
Speaking of cuts: this is a movie in search of either a) a competent editor or b) an editor who would at least argue with Ms. Stroman. My hunch is Stroman’s Broadway acclaim gave her too much of a free reign to make The Producers as she wished and I’m sure she regrets most of her decisions.
In the end, I will not throw out my copy of 2005’s The Producers because I treasure filmed recordings of plays (I’m a playwright after all), but will it ever be considered a classic? Possibly not, but it is most certainly lost to time and it doesn’t deserve that.
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