The Producers (2005 film)

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The Producers is a 2005 film based on the 2001 Broadway musical of the same name, which is in turn based on the 1968 movie starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Andréas Voutsinas. The movie is directed by Susan Stroman (the director and choreographer of the original Broadway production). The film received a limited release in the United States on December 16, 2005; the film expanded to over 600 theaters on December 25, 2005. The film achieved a box office total of just over $3,000,000 in its opening weekend of wide release. It was released on DVD on May 16, 2006.

Cast

• Gary Beach - Roger De Bris
• Nathan Lane - Max Bialystock
• Matthew Broderick - Leopold 'Leo' Bloom
• Uma Thurman - Ulla Inga Hansen Bensen Yansen Tallen Hallen Svadon Swanson [last name unknown]
• Will Ferrell - Franz Liebkind
• Roger Bart - Carmen Ghia
• Eileen Essell - Hold Me-Touch Me
• Andrea Martin - Kiss Me-Feel Me
• John Barrowman - Lead Tenor Stormtrooper
• Jon Lovitz - Mr. Marks

Changes from the original musical

• Like the 2005 film adaptation of Rent, the remake of The Producers reunites almost all of the original Broadway cast, save for two actors: Cady Huffman, who played Ulla, and was replaced by Uma Thurman; and Brad Oscar, who played Franz Liebkind, and was replaced by Will Ferrell.
• The songs "The King of Broadway," "In Old Bavaria" and "Where Did We Go Right?" were deleted from the film. However, "The King Of Broadway" appears as a bonus on the soundtrack, and "In Old Bavaria" appears as a bonus track on the soundtrack when purchased at Borders. Both songs also appear as deleted scenes on the DVD version.
• A verse of "I Wanna Be a Producer" is excised from the film. It is the verse where a black accountant sings in the style of a musical along the lines of Show Boat. (It's also included as part of the deleted scenes on the DVD.)
• Three new songs were written for the movie: "You'll Find Your Happiness In Rio" (replacing "Where Did We Go Right?"), "There's Nothing Like A Show on Broadway", which plays over the end credits, and is followed by "The Hop Clop Goes On".

Notes

• This movie is a musical based on a musical based on a movie about a musical.
• The first of Max Bialystock's plays in this movie is a musical version of Hamlet, which involves a play within a play. The Producers has its own play within a play (or movie, as it were), this play being "Springtime for Hitler".
• Nearly all of the plays besides Springtime for Hitler and Prisoners Of Love, produced by Max and later Max & Leo, are spoofs of famous Broadway plays, including Funny Boy: A Musical Version Of Hamlet (referring to both Funny Girl and Hamlet), King Leer (King Lear), South Passaic (South Pacific), Death Of A Salesman On Ice (Death Of A Salesman), Katz (Cats), High Button Jews (High Button Shoes) and Maim! (Mame).
• A calendar in the office lists the date as June 16. This is the date the action occurs in James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, which also has a main character named Leopold Bloom. The day is celebrated by many people as Bloomsday. In the film, Leo Bloom's line, 'When's it gonna be Bloom's day?' is a reference to this.

Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia

• Zero Mostel, who created the role of Max Bialystock in the original film, played Leopold Bloom in a Broadway play adapted from Ulysses in 1974.
• 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.
• Nicole Kidman was originally cast as Ulla. Matthew Broderick allegedly offered her the role while they were filming The Stepford Wives together, to which she immediately said yes without seeing so much as a first draft of the script. She subsequently withdrew due to scheduling conflicts.
• Originally, this was almost shot in Toronto. New York State tax incentives made it possible for the production to film in New York City at the new Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Producer Mel Brooks also jokingly complained that the bagels in Toronto were 'too mushy'.
• The bit that Max Bialystock reads and claims to be 'too good' as he searches for the worst play is the opening section of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
• Many of the people in the audience scenes are not actors; they are ordinary people who got to be extras in the film in exchange for giving a charitable donation.
• 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 smartie, 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. According to Susan Strohman's DVD commentary, Brooks also provided the voice for Liebkind's mechanical birds.
• A number of performers from previous stage productions of The Producers have cameos in the film: Richard Kind, the foreman on the jury, played Max Bialystock on Broadway from December 21, 2004 to July 3, 2005; Brad Oscar, who played the Franz Liebkind in the original production and originally replaced Nathan Lane as Bialystock in 2002, plays the taxi driver; Jai Rodriguez played the role of Carmen Ghia on Broadway in November 2005 and appears in the movie as Sabu.
• Franz Liebkind yells about serious injuries he's received off-screen. This is similar to a bit Will Ferrell did as 'Mustafa' in the first two Austin Powers movies.
• The musical sequence that involves Bialystock leading the old female investors marching through the city street is a homage to the finale of Meredith Willson's The Music Man.
• At the end of "The Hop Clop Goes On", Franz Liebkind tells the audience that they can get Mein Kampf in paperback at Borders Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com.
• 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 lost, it's over'. This is like the post-credit sequence in another Matthew Broderick movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
• Eric Gunhus, who played the 'Lead Tenor Stormtrooper' in the Broadway musical, makes cameos as a member of the ensemble and as one of the little old ladies.
• When Max is visiting the old ladies in their apartment buildings, he pushes lots of elevator buttons. One of the names is A. Bancroft, a reference to Mel Brooks' late wife, Anne Bancroft. Another is labeled 'J. Gatsby', a reference to the eponymous protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. Others include Bloomingdales, which is the name of a department store, and Tisch, which also bears the Tisch School of Arts and Tisch Hospital at NYU.

Uma Thurman as Ulla.

• A further reference is made in the film, to the musical classic Singin' In The Rain, where the song sung in Sing Sing is "Gotta Sing-Sing", an obvious reference to the well-known "Gotta Dance".
• Mel Brooks' notes in The Producers: The Book, Lyrics, And Story Behind the Biggest Hit in Broadway History! mentions a musical number set in Rio. Brooks notes, however, that the set costs would have been too high, so they got rid of it.
• The outrageous costumes worn by the chorus girls walking down staircases during the opening sequence of Springtime For Hitler are a homage to the elaborate costumes of Florenz, designed for Ziegfeld's Follies, as well as to Funny Girl, which itself was about Ziegfeld's Follies.
• The very beginning of the auditions for the part of Adolf Hitler is a homage to the Broadway musical A Chorus Line, as the combination of the opening piano lick and the line 'again' begin "I Hope I Get It", the opening number from A Chorus Line.
• Max calls Franz Liebkind a "Teutonic twit." In Brooks' Blazing Saddles, Hedley Lamarr called Lili Von Shtupp a "Teutonic twat." In another Blazing Saddles homage, when Max and Leo leave Franz, he presses himself against the door after them, the pose and line ("Vhat nice guys") are taken from Lili again. Max receives Leo's postcard in jail and says to the guard "Who do I know in Rio?" He then asks the guard "Why am I asking you?" in reference to the Blazing Saddles character Hedley Lamarr asking a rhetorical question and, looking straight at the camera, saying "Why am I asking you?" The choreography for the "Prisoners of Love" rehearsal in SingSing involving canes and tap-dancing is the exact same as Gene Wilder/Peter Boyle choreography from Young Frankenstein. Finally, Leo's "Work work work!" is an homage to the scene in Blazing Saddles where Brooks as the governor says the same thing.
• Just before Ulla auditions, Leo begins to tell her that an audition really isn't necessary, but is cut off by Max at "nece-". This is also a line from Mel Brooks' movie High Anxiety.
• The woman who plays the piano during the Hitler auditions played Hold-Me-Touch-Me in the Broadway production.
• This film takes place back in the early 1950s.

External links

• [Official site]
• [}}}] at Rotten Tomatoes
• [Movie Review] Xdafied.com.au

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