ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

JUST BECAUSE something is a great big hit in the theatre, it doesn’t follow that it will be a surefire  success in the cinema.

‘The Producers’ was the toast of Broadway in 2001, winning a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. The film version is a loud, lumbering dinosaur that leaves you wondering what all the fuss was about.

‘The Producers’ started life as an Oscar-winning Mel Brooks screen comedy in 1968, with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in the lead roles. Brooks then adapted it into a brash, sassy stage musical, and now it has come full circle back to the cinema. Unfortunately, first time film director Susan Stroman does nothing to make this version feel cinematic.

The camera is set down in the front row of the stalls and the performances are so shrill and overbearing that they seem to be aimed at someone seated in the back row of the grand circle.

Original Broadway star Nathan Lane still has his amusing moments as the devious, two-timing Broadway producer Max Bialystock, a man who finances his shows by wooing and charming little old ladies. but Matthew Broderick is shockingly bad as mild-mannered accountant Leopold Bloom.

It is Bloom who innocently remarks how much easier it would be to make money from a flop than a success. A grand scheme is hatched in which the two men decide to produce the worst show in Broadway history, sell the rights twenty times over and just pocket the money when it closes on opening night.

The show they choose is a jaw-dropping little gem called ‘Springtime For Hitler’. Presented with unflagging energy, ‘The Producers’ is desperately old-fashioned. and doesn’t even benefit from appearances by Will Ferrell as a demented neo-Nazi playwright or Uma Thurman as Swedish bombshell Ulla. A very singular disappointment.

Nationwide release
Director: Susan Stroman
Stars: Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell, Gary Beach, Jon Lovitz
Screenplay: Mel Brooks, Thomas Meehan
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 129 mins
Country: US
Year: 2005

 © Allan Hunter, 2005