What The Critics Say

"If Mel Brooks is remembered for only three films, then he can rest easy knowing that they're three of the funniest ones ever made. And "The Producers" was the first." Scott Weinberg DVDTALK.COM "This is one of the funniest movies ever made." Roger Ebert CHICAGO SUN-TIMES "Are you kidding? One of the best comedies ever made." Widgett Walls NEEDCOFFEE.COM "Ferrell hasn’t been this enjoyably nuts since Old School, proving that his real talent is as an ensemble player rather than a marquee star ." Brett Buckalew FILMSTEW.COM "As colorful and fun as the cast is, it's the play-within-the-play that pushes the movie into genius, a musical so bad it's hilarious." John J Puccio DVDTOWN.COM "Great, great, great! "Springtime for Hitler," one of the funniest sequences ever put on film! Wilder is great, Mostel, a force of nature. Always fresh, no matter how often you see it." Bob Bloom JOURNAL AND COURIER "More than thirty years after its initial release, it's still outrageous as ever and one of the funniest films ever made." Bob Aulert CULTUREVULTURE.NET "Nathan Lane seems to be doing a Zero Mostel imitation and his manic energy is infectious. Uma Thurman oozes glamour as the Swedish beauty hired as secretary to the producers, and Will Ferrell is hilarious as the unreconstructed Nazi who still adores Adolf Hitler." David Stratton ABC ATTHEMOVIES

The Inside Story Winner of Twelve 2001 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book, Best Choreography and Best Orchestrations; Eleven Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical and Best Lyrics; Eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding Broadway Musical and that's just scratching the surface when it comes to Mel Brooks Broadway play "The Producers". Now cinema fans the world over can see it all up there on the big screen and let me say it's sensational. I won't go into useless comparisons between the stage production and the screen version because it's an arguement that can't be won, so let me just make this point, both are excellent and film does allow for a lot more scope in the visual department. The concept behind "The Producers" is simple as producer, writer, composer and lyricist Mel Brooks explained. "The concept is simple. "They’ve got to raise a lot more money than they need to put on a show. Then they’ve got to produce the worst play ever written. So they’ll put on a show called "Springtime for Hitler", which will close the same night, and they can run off to Rio with the rest of the investors’ money." While the concept remains the same, there have been some changes made which will be evident to those who have seen the show in either New York or London. The stage production is based on the 1968 Mel Brooks film, "The Producers" which earned Brooks and Academy Award ® for best original screenplay. The catalyst for bringing film to the stage was film impresario David Geffen who in 1988 started hounding Brooks. As it turned out, Brooks had been a "great fan of the theater since his Uncle Joe took him to see Cole Porter’s "Anything Goes" at the age of nine. Brooks had always had the desire to be a Broadway composer/lyricist." Geffen suggested Brooks should meet Broadway composer Jerry Herman. He did. After playing some of the songs composed by Brooks, Herman suggested Mel Brooks should write all of them. While Brooks was writing the songs and lyric, he called in his good friend Thomas Meehan and invited him to co-write the project. Meehan, who had won a Tony Award for "Annie" was only to happy to join forces with his friend. Nexyt on Brooks list was Susan Stroman. "I got a call saying Mel Brooks wants to meet you. Tonight." Stroman went home. Later there was a knock at the door. "I opened the door and there he was, this legend," Stroman recalls. "But instead of speaking, he launched into full voice singing, 'That Face' which opens Act Two of "The Producers". In typical Mel Brooks fashion it didn't end there. "He kept singing," she said. "He walked past me, all the way down the hallway and jumped on my sofa. He finished the song, looked down at me and said, 'Hello, I’m Mel Brooks'. And I thought, no matter what happens with this show, it’s going to be a great adventure." And was it? "In fact, it has been one of the greatest times of my life", says Stroman. Twelve Tony Awards, two national touring companies and three international productions later, Brooks would give Stroman the job directing the film version. Did she need any help? "When it came to directing advice," says Brooks, "I told Susan you must say 'action' and then you say 'cut'. If you say 'cut' first and then 'action', there’ll be no film. I had to explain the rudiments. No, I’m kidding. I knew immediately that she would take to this. She has an incredible visual gift." TWO time Tony Award winner winner Matthew Broderick agress. "Her transition to movies seems just effortless. She’s extremely prepared, a very hard worker. You never get to a rehearsal and have to fill the time. She has it all very well planned out so you feel her strength and her smarts all the time." Broderick should know after all, he has worked with Stroman since the first read-through of the musical in 2000. Another member of the production team to get a surprise was Jonathan Sanger. "I told Mel that if it winds up becoming a movie again, I’d like to help him produce it. And one day Brooks called and said, Get your track shoes on, and let’s talk about how we can do this on film." Brooks had two ambitions with the film version. The first was to retain as many of the original Broadsway cast as possibel. The second? To shoot the film in New York. He managed to do both. "To get this movie right, it had to be made by New Yorkers," production designer Mark Friedberg said. "As much as I designed what you see on our Shubert Alley set, there are hundreds and hundreds of hands in the making of it, and every stroke of paint or layer of dust meant significant decisions made by people who are living here in New York." Filming in New York had the advantage of being close to "Broadway’s most talented singers and dancers." For those spectacular dance sequences they would audition over 3700 dancers for 370 roles. There are a lot of standouts in "The Producers", none more so than the sensational cast. "Nathan Lane is a once-in-a-generation Broadway performer," says Meehan. "He’s in that rare class, someone who comes out on a stage and just mesmerizes you. He has this incredible energy and excitement and great comedy timing." "What Matthew is able to do is imbue this mousy guy with not only great comic timing but a sense of pathos as well," says producer Jonathan Sanger. Gary Beach and Roger Bart were both happy to be included in the films cast. Bart who plays Roger De Bris secretary Carmen Ghia says, "I’m just so happy that they’re doing it in such a grand way and that Gary and I are involved." Joining the original cast members Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Gary Beach and Roger Bart are newcomers Uma Thurman & Will Ferrell, both of whom, by the way, couldn't dance. "Fortunately for me, there was a wonderful dance department on this show, and basically I went into boot camp with them for a couple of months," says the blonde bombshell. But here's another little secret. Thurman couldn't sing either. "She had never had a voice lesson, and she really worked hard at it, musical director Patrick Brady states. "You should have seen the look on her face when she experienced the live orchestra. It was overwhelming and terrific." And how did comedian and longtime fan of the original movie and the stage show Will Ferrell handle his tasks? "I had a slight reservation as to how I’d fare with the singing and dancing, but I couldn’t resist the part," Ferrell admits. "It was intimidating at first, in the recording studio with a big orchestra for the pre-record session and everyone listening, but once I got comfortable with it, it was kind of fun. It’s a whole different ball of wax for me." Finally, Stroman agrees that shooting on film does have an added advantage. "In the theatre, the audience sees everything in a wide shot," she says. "On film, I am able to use the close-up to tell the story more immediately and in a more intimate way. Plus, getting a close-up on the humorous faces of Nathan, Matthew, Gary and Roger heightens the comedy even more." Cast & Crew Bytes "THE PRODUCERS" stars .......
Olivier, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award winner and TWO time Tony Award winner Nathan Lane ["The Bird Cage", "Addams Family Values", "Nicholas Nickelby" and "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"]; TWO time Tony Award winner and Outer Critics Circle Award winner Matthew Broderick ["Ferris Bueller’s Day Off", "You Can Count on Me", "Election", "Godzilla" and "The Cable Guy"]; Golden Globe Award winner Uma Thurman ["The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", "Pulp Fiction", "Gattaca", "The Golden Bowl" and "Kill Bill Vol: I & II"]; Will Ferrell ["Road Trip", "Elf", "Old School" "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy", "Wedding Crashers" and "Kicking & Screaming"]; 1999 Tony and Drama Desk Awards winner Roger Bart ["I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With", "The Insider" and "The Stepford Wives"]; 2001 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards winner Gary Beach ["Defending Your Life" and "Man Of The Century"]; Jon Lovitz ["The Wedding Singer", "3000 Miles To Gracelands", Cats & Dogs"", "Rat Race" and "The Stepford Wives"]; Debra Monk ["The Bridges of Madison County", "Bulworth", "Centre Stage" and "Palindromes"] and Winner of THREE 2001 Tony Awards; 1998 & 2001 GRAMMY Award winner; 2005 Laurence Olivier Award winner Mel Brooks ["The Producers", "Young Frankenstein", "Silent Movie", "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and "Life Stinks"] as Black Cat.
"THE PRODUCERS" was .......
directed by 1992 Tony Award, 1997 Astaire Award, 2000 Tony Award; 2001 Outer Critics Circle Award, 2003 Emmy Award winner Susan Stroman ["Centre Stage" & "The Producers"]; screenplay by 1977, 2001 & 2003 Tony Award winner Thomas Meehan ["To Be or Not to Be", "One Magic Christmas", "Spaceballs" and "A Child's Garden of Verses"] and Mel Brooks ["Blazing Saddles", "Young Frankenstein", "High Anxiety" and "Silent Movie"]; original story by Academy Award ® winner; THREE times Tony Award winner; 1997-1999 EMMY Award winner Mel Brooks ["The Twelve Chairs", "10 from Your Show of Shows", "The Nude Bomb" and "History of the World: Part I"]; costume design by William Ivey Long ["The Cutting Edge", "Life with Mikey", "Curtain Call" and "Chop Suey"]; production design by Mark Friedberg ["Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen", "Runaway Bride", "Pollock" and "Broken Flowers"]; edited by Steven Weisberg ["Mistress", "The Cable Guy", "Nurse Betty" and "Men in Black II"]; art direction by Peter Rogness ["Centre Stage", "Pollock", "The Shipping News" and "Far from Heaven"]; original music by Mel Brooks; produced by Jonathan Sanger ["The Elephant Man", "Frances", "Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall" and "Vanilla Sky"] and Mel Brooks ["To Be or Not To Be", "The Doctor and the Devils", "84 Charing Cross Road" and "The Vagrant"]. What It's All About It's 1959 and Max Bialystock is in big trouble. Not only has his latest Broadway production flopped, accountant Leo Bloom has found an error in his books. It seems Max can't account for the $2000 missing from funds raised for the last stage production. To Max it's only money and Leo looks a smart young man, a creative young man. Surely, with all his accounting talents he can balance the books. Of course he can! Then Leo happens to mention that in theory, Max could have raised a million dollars and if the show had flopped he could have kept the lot. Of course, that would have meant fleeing the country to say, South America. The scheming Max's mind goes into overdrive. We'll do it! We can do it! All we have to do is find the worst play, the worst director, the worst cast and close after opening night. Four steps to retirement in Rio De Janiero. Max will raise two million dollars. That's a million for me and a million for you he tells Leo. At first Leo is reluctant, but returning to the office where he works under the mean-spirited Mr Marks soon convinces him that Max is right. Together they can do it. Now all they have to do is find the worst play ever written etc, etc, etc, etc. Four simple steps to follow and failure will bring the success Max and Leo both dream of. Can they do it! Bialystock and Bloom are about to make Broadway history with the biggest flop ever. Or will they? The Verdict "Bialystock & Bloom. Bialystock & Bloom. Their winners. It's the film the whole world [with the exception of Germany, Poland, and France] have been waiting for. Mel Brooks, "The Producers". First seen on film in 1968, taken onto Broadway in 2001 and now on the big screen. It's larger than 'live'. It will have you tapping your toes, singing along to joyous songs and laughing your head off. Original Broadway cast members Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Gary Beach and Roger Bart are joined by that glorious blonde dish with the longest legs in show biz Uma Thurman and that zany comedian Will Ferrell who is sensational as Franz Liebkind. It's Wacky! It's Tacky! It's Sexy! It's Gay! It's, "The Producers". Directed by multi-award winner Susan Stroman. Whatever you do, don't miss it. Very Recommended." Who's Who?

Nathan Lane Matthew Broderick Uma Thurman Will Ferrell Roger Bart Gary Beach Jon Lovitz Debra Monk Andrea Martin Jason Antoon Fred Applegate Jerry Richardson Brent Barrett Jim Borstelmann Jai Rodriguez Mike Jackson John Barrowman Mel Brooks Colleen Dunn Kathy Fitzgerald Richard Kind Victor Yerrid

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Max Bialystock Leo Bloom Ulla Franz Liebkind Carmen Ghia Roger De Bris Mr Marks Hold Me-Touch Me Little Old Lady Investor Jason Green Sergeant O'Toole Officer O'Reilly Bryan Scott the Choreographer Sabu Indian Lead Tenor Stormtrooper Black Cat Pearl Girl Ugly Showgirl Foreman of the Jury Adolph Pigeon

The Crew Directed by Susan Stroman Produced by Mel Brooks & Jonathan Sanger Non-Original Music by Mel Brooks Cinematography by John Bailey & Charles Minsky Film Editing by Steven Weisberg Casting by Tara Jayne Rubin Production Design by Mark Friedberg Art Direction by Peter Rogness Set Decoration by Ellen Christiansen & Janine Pesce Costume Design by William Ivey Long Run Time 134 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - Sony Pictures - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - Impact Internet Services & The Movie Pages - All Rights Reserved