The Producers is a 2005 American comedy-musical film starring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Uma Thurman. It is based on the 2001 Broadway musical of the same name and a remake of the 1968 film of the same name starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, and Andréas Voutsinas. The movie is directed by Susan Stroman (the director and choreographer of the original Broadway production). It was produced and distributed domestically by Universal Pictures and distributed overseas by Columbia Pictures.
Plot
- Note: Words in bold indicate musical numbers
The flop musical "Funny Boy" (based on William Shakespeare's Hamlet) opens – and closes ("Opening Night"). Afterward, Leo Bloom (Matthew Broderick) arrives at the office of the show's washed up producer, Max Bialystock (Nathan Lane). Max has hired Leo Bloom as his accountant. While studying Max's books, Leo inadvertently inspires Max to put on a show that is certain to fail at the box office and cleverly change their accounts leaving them with $2,000,000 to spend. At first, Leo refuses to participate. Max, who cannot change the books himself, attempts to coax Leo into the scheme ("We Can Do It"). Leo still refuses and returns to his old accounting firm, Whitehall & Marks.
After being chastised by Mr. Marks (Jon Lovitz), Leo fantasizes about being a Broadway producer ("I Wanna Be a Producer"). Leo quits his job and with Max, forms Bialystock & Bloom. Max and Leo search for "the worst play ever written" and discover Springtime for Hitler, written by an ex-Nazi named Franz Liebkind (Will Ferrell). They are coerced into performing Adolf Hitler's favorite tune and obeying the sacred "Siegfried Oath" in order to gain Liebkind's signature for Broadway rights to the musical ("Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop"). They solicit a flamboyant gay director, Roger De Bris (Gary Beach) ("the worst director in the world"), to direct and choreograph the play. De Bris initially refuses saying that the musical is far too dark and gritty and that Broadway needs to be more "gay" ("Keep It Gay"). Roger is talked into it, however, after being enticed by Max and Leo, who tell him that if he directs the play, he is certain to win a Tony. Then, Ulla (Uma Thurman), a beautiful Swedish woman, appears at their office for casting despite there being no auditions. Max insists on hiring her as their secretary and auditioning her ("When You've Got It, Flaunt It").
To gain the finances for the musical Max has affairs with every old lady across town ("Along Came Bialy"). Max and Leo return to the office to discover that Ulla has redecorated it to be entirely white. After Max leaves, Leo laments about Ulla and the dangers of sex straying him from his work, culminating in a kiss between Leo and Ulla ("That Face"). Later, at the auditions for the role of Hitler, Franz becomes angered at a performer's rendition of a beloved German song. Franz storms the stage and sings the song the correct way ("Haben Sie gehört das Deutsches Band?"). Max hires Franz to play Hitler.
On opening night, as the cast and crew prepare to go on stage, Leo wishes everyone "good luck", to which the players are horrified. They explain to Leo that it is in fact "bad luck" to say "good luck" on opening night and that the correct phrase is to say "break a leg" ("You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night"). Franz leaves to prepare and, in his rush, literally breaks his leg. Max enlists Roger to perform the role in his place, and Roger accepts.
As the show opens, the audience is horrified and begins to walk out until Roger steps on stage as Hitler. Because his performance is so flamboyant, the audience sees the play as a mockery of Hitler rather than Franz's original vision ("Springtime for Hitler"). As a result, the show is a success and the IRS will be keeping tabs on Max and Leo. After the show, an angry Franz starts trying to shoot the producers for, despite his show being a hit, making a fool out of Hitler. However, the police arrest him after hearing the shots, but not before breaking his other leg while trying to escape. Max, too, gets arrested for his tax fraud, while Leo and Ulla escape to Rio ("Betrayed"), but they return to stand up for Max in court ("'Til Him"). The judge sentences them both to five years at Sing Sing, but they and Franz are pardoned after writing a musical in prison ("Prisoners of Love"), and go on to become successful Broadway producers.
Cast
Soundtrack and songs
The Producers Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
- "Overture" - Orchestra
- "Opening Night" - Opening Nighters
- "We Can Do It" - Max and Leo
- "I Wanna Be a Producer" - Leo, Accountants, and Mr. Marks
- "Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop" - Franz, Max, and Leo
- "Keep It Gay" - Roger, Carmen, Max, Leo, and Company
- "When You Got It, Flaunt It" - Ulla
- "Along Came Bialy" - Max and Little Old Ladies
- "That Face" - Leo and Ulla
- "Haben Sie gehört das Deutsche band?" - Franz
- "You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night" - Roger, Carmen, Franz, Max, and Leo
- "Springtime for Hitler (Part I)" - Soldiers, Girls, and Company
- "Heil Myself" - Roger and Company
- "Springtime for Hitler (Part II)" - Roger, Ulla, and Company
- "You'll Find Your Happiness in Rio" - Samba Band
- "Betrayed" - Max
- "'Til Him" - Max, Leo, and Little Old Ladies
- "Prisoners of Love (Broadway)" - Prisoners, Ulla, and Company
- "Prisoners of Love (Leo and Max)" - Leo and Max
- "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway" - Leo and Max
- "The Hop-Clop Goes On" - Franz
- "Goodbye!" - Leo, Max, Ulla, Roger, Carmen, Mr. Marks, Accountants, Dancing Girls, and Mel Brooks
- "The King of Broadway" - Max (deleted scene on DVD)
Reception
The Producers received mixed reviews from critics. One positive online review said: "Outrageous musical numbers evoke most of the laughs in this movie funfest. Eat your heart out, Rockettes, because here comes a little old ladies’ chorus line (“Along Came Bialy”) to rival your success. Watch out, real-life producers, for an actor named Gary Beach (“Heil Myself”). Never, and I mean never, hire him if you want your play to flop! And stop spinning in your grave, Florenz Ziegfeld. Those “Springtime for Hitler and Germany” showgirls are all in good fun. Finally, congratulations to director Susan Stroman, for making this Broadway gem into a film that old-time movie musical fans like me can cheer about."[1]
Nathan Rabin wrote: "Between the rough start and an ending that lingers too long, there's a solid hour or so of terrific entertainment that serves as both a giddy tribute to Broadway musicals and a parody thereof. Thirty-seven years after Brooks declared war on taste and propriety, 'The Producers' has lost its power to shock or offend, but it's retained its ability to amuse."[2]
Roger Ebert cited difficulty in reviewing the film due to familiarity with the original 1968 film. However, he did state that the new version was "fun" and gave it three stars (out of a possible four). Said Ebert: "The new movie is a success, that I know. How much of a success, I cannot be sure."[3]
Most negative reviews suggested that the performances were tuned more for the theater rather than for film. Stephanie Zacharek observed: "'The Producers' is essentially a filmed version of a stage play, in which none of the characters' expressions or line readings have been scaled down to make sense on-screen. Every gesture is played out as if the actors were 20 feet away in real life, which means that, by the time the performers are magnified on the big screen, they're practically sitting in your lap. The effect is something like watching a 3-D Imax movie without the special glasses.[4]
Trivia
- In the song "Opening Night", a newspaper theatre review is shown on the screen; on the byline, credit is given to Addison DeWitt, the theatre critic played by George Sanders in All About Eve.
- Although it's never said, the film takes place in 1959, when Broadway was a prominent place of entertainment.[5]
- In the scene when Ulla first enters Bialystock's office, the King Leer poster next to the door can be seen, and after a few seconds, its eyes start spinning.
- The voices of 'Tom the Cat' (who is thrown by Bialystock into the theater) and the Stormtrooper who says 'Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi Party!' are provided by Mel Brooks, two voices he also pre-recorded for the Broadway show and one voice (the latter) that he did in the original movie.
- After the closing credits, there is an additional song where the cast bids good-bye to the audience. This number is also sung in the stage production right after the final company bow. At the end of the number is a cameo by Mel Brooks himself, who tells the audience: 'Get out, it's over'. In an interview, Brooks complained that audiences wanted to stay in the theater after the show was over. He specifically wrote this song to tell everyone to leave.
- When Leo Bloom shouts "Stop the world, I wanna get on!" it is a reference to the musical Stop the World - I Want to Get Off.
- Ulla (Uma Thurman)'s greeting "Goddag min vännen" means "good morning my friends" in Swedish (though the grammar is incorrect, it should have been "goddag mina vänner").
- When Max is visiting the old ladies in their apartment buildings, he pushes several intercom buttons, labeled with names of the residents they refer to. Many of these are references to famous people:
- 'A. Bancroft', Mel Brooks' late wife, Anne Bancroft.
- 'J. Gatsby', the eponymous protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.
- 'Bloomingdales', the name of a department store.
- 'Tisch', the Tisch School of Arts and Tisch Hospital at New York University.
- 'C. F. Kane', referring to Charles Foster Kane, from the film Citizen Kane.
- 'E. Wharton', referring to Edith Wharton author of "Ethan Frome".
- 'M. Kaminsky', Mel Brooks' birth name, Melvin Kaminsky.
- 'A. Carnegie' (Andrew Carnegie).
- 'J.J. Astor' (John Jacob Astor V).
- 'J. Rockefeller' (John D. Rockefeller).
- 'J. Pulitzer', Joseph Pulitzer, who established the Pulitzer Prize.
- A black fedora is the "Broadway producer's hat" that Max finally allows Leo to wear in the last scene.
- While talking about the $2,000 missing from Max's books after "Funny Boy", the calendar behind Max and Leo reads June 16. The date is known as "Bloomsday" (later referenced when Leo and Max agree go ahead with their plan) by fans of James Joyce and his novel Ulysses. Joyce's character Leopold Bloom experiences extraordinary things on what's supposed to be an ordinary day - June 16. Later, Bloom, telling Max he wants to become a producer, asks "When's it going to be Bloomsday?"
- The two main stars of the film, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick previously worked together voicing friends Timon the meerkat and Simba the lion in Disney's 1994 animated film The Lion King. A scene shot for The Producers, but deleted, showed the pair on-screen with Ernie Sabella, who voiced the third member of their friendship, Pumbaa the warthog. This scene is included on the DVD. The scene is called the Astor Bar and shows where Max and Leo escaped to during the middle of Springtime for Hitler when Max said, "Let's get out of here before they kill us". The three are the only people in the bar and Max buys a round for all of them and sings about Rio. Eventually Max and Leo leave to see how badly their show flopped (they had no idea how people had reacted to Roger's Hitler) while Ernie Sabella stays.
- At the end of the song "The Hop-Clop Goes On" Franz whispers, "Don't forget to buy Mein Kampf, in paperback. Available near you at Borders Books or Barnes & Noble und Amazon.com."
- When Max and Leo are searching for the worst play ever written in Act 1, Max reads out the opening sentence of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, but dismisses it as "too good".
- When Leo wakes up from his dream of being a Broadway Producer while being at work, on the croquis he uses, you can clearly read "Property of Universal" with the Universal logo beneath it.
- The swastika the dancers do in "Springtime for Hitler" is inverted, mainly because the audience was supposed to see it through the mirror on the back.
- Roger Bart, Matthew Broderick, and Jon Lovitz also appeared together in the remake of Stepford Wives
References to other Brooks works
In the movie there are references to other movies by Mel Brooks, including:
- High Anxiety: Ulla asks if she can audition for Max and Leo, Leo begins to say, "Oh no, miss, that won't be nece–" (interrupted, the full word being "necessary"). Max interrupts him, saying "Yes, it is 'nece,' extremely 'nece'!".
- Blazing Saddles: while looking over the contracts in the freshly-painted office, Leo says to himself, "Work work work, work work work, work work work." In Max's prison scene, the prison guard says he has a postcard from someone in Brazil, Max wonders aloud who he knows in Brazil, before asking the guard, "Why am I asking you?". Carmen Ghia's drawn out "Yesssss?" is also a reference to Blazing Saddles, heard during the gay dancers scene headed by Dom DeLuise. When Max uses the line 'you Teutonic twit' it is a reference to Hedley Lamarr's 'you Teutonic twat'. Bialystock also mouths "What the fuck?" in Central Park, similarly to Hedley Lamarr during the pie fight scene. As Bialystock and Bloom leave the roof Franz leans against the door and says, "What nice guys" in the same manner that Lily Von Schtupp does when Sheriff Bart leaves her dressing room saying "What a nice guy."
- To Be or Not to Be: while playing Hitler, Roger sings a song entitled "Heil Myself".
- Silent Movie; the "walker dance" during the number "Along Came Bialy"
- Young Frankenstein; while in Sing Sing prison, the inmates are seen rehearsing a dance for Prisoners of Love. This is the same dance done by Dr. Frederick Frankenstein and the Frankenstein Monster.
- Some of the lines in the movie were used, in a different context, in Mel Brooks' movie, Blazing Saddles. In the Producers, Matthew Brodderick's character at one point -- while trying to distract himself from Uma Thurman's character, says "Work, work, work." And a few minutes later, when he sees some papers, he says "Hello boys." In Blazing Saddles, Mel Brook's character said these same two lines, in a similar context but to show a different character. In Blazing Saddles, Brooks' character of the territorial governor says "Work, work, work" when he is with his busty assistant. And he says "Hello boys" to refer to her breasts. Brodderick's character used the line to try to distract himself from his assistant, and Brooks' character used them to voice how much he liked his own assistant.
Certain actors in the film have been involved in previous Brooks-related productions, such as David Huddleston, who played Olson Johnson in Blazing Saddles and Thomas Meehan, who co-wrote Spaceballs, the film's previous musical incarnation's book and the film itself with Brooks.
References
External links
