12-28-05, 9:17 am

The Producers Directed by Susan Stroman


Nothing succeeds like success. Mel Brooks deservedly won an Oscar for his seminal screenplay for The Producers in 1968.

The comedy marked his auspicious directorial debut and has, rightly, achieved classic status, showcases one of cinema's finest and funniest musical numbers - Springtime for Hitler.

There are some people - po-faced poseurs with fractured funny bones, perhaps? - who believe that Brooks's heady vision of tap-dancing storm troopers and a singing fuhrer is simply in bad taste. They're wrong.

Brooks is a brilliant, inventive satirist who uses comedy to make potent points about unspeakable events in the finest tradition of Ernst Lubitsch's To Be Or Not To Be.

Brooks's story for The Producers is ingenious and audacious. Venal Broadway producer Max Bialystock and naive accountant Leo Bloom set out to make their fortune by fleecing their investors by staging a surefire Broadway flop.

They find the perfect play in Springtime for Hitler, a gay romp with Adolf and Eva in Berchtesgarten, and recruit a dud director and matching cast.

It seems as if nothing can go wrong - except that the first-night audience turns the would-be appalling show into a surprise success. In 2001, Brooks turned The Producers into a mega-hit musical that was nominated for 14 Tony awards and won 12, more than any other show in Broadway history.

But theatre is a niche medium, marked by privilege and too often appallingly overpriced.

So we should cheer Brooks and director Susan Stroman for turning their stage show into an exhilarating movie musical accessible to everyone.

Brooks and co-writer Thomas Meehan have happily retained the basic plot and the original Broadway stars Nathan Lane (Max), Matthew Broderick (Leo), Gary Beach as flamboyantly gay director Roger de Bris and Roger Bart as his 'common-law' assistant Carmen Ghia.

All of them are magnificent, vividly and unmissably recreating their superbly honed stage performances for the film.

Uma Thurman, a victim of Quentin Tarantino's egregious ego-trip Kill Bill, unexpectedly delivers an unforgettable, eye-popping comic performance.

She's truly hilarious as Max and Leo's long-legged hormone-stirring Swedish secretary. She sings and dances to memorable award-worthy effect.

Will Ferrell, playing Springtime's deranged nazi playwright, puts in a trademark over-the-top performance, but, this time, it's deliberate. It works to hugely enjoyable effect.

Yes, the performances are larger than life, but they are all the more enjoyable for it.

Cinepseuds and those reviewers who are more concerned with subtext, montage and, if at all possible, subtitles than entertainment, may object to what is essentially a reworking of the stage show for the cinema.

But popular appeal is also 'art,' however much that might grate with art film devotees.

In fact, the essential simplicity of Stroman's approach - to showcase the stars, her own witty choreography and the story to maximum impact - pays off handsomely.

While the film won't win critical plaudits for auteuristic boastfulness, it will score where it matters most - with paying moviegoers seeking two hours of pure pleasure.

The plot is clever, the show fizzes with great jokes that come fast and furiously and the songs and dancers are a delight. So is the film.

Three cheers for Brooks and company for reviving the classic Hollywood musical film so cleverly, amusingly and, above all, so enjoyably.

From Morning Star