Today is the first day of 2006. I am not going to ruminate too much about 2005 today. This blog has done nothing but ruminate-a fancy word for bullshit-about the events of the past year. Which is mercifully past. I’m also not going to write about resolutions. I have a couple and it is my present intention to keep them. But you know about resolutions. They are pretty malleable things and they seem to be mostly honored in their breach. Besides, they are boring. Neither will I make bold to set out my predictions for 2006. My track record as a prognosticator is worse than my track record with women. Besides, just because it is New Year’s Day is no reason to junk the usual Sunday format. So I won't.
Neither J nor I are big New Year’s Eve people. There is no point in getting out there with the amateur drunks and the cops. Besides, she carries a badge. The prospect of getting pulled over would not exactly jibe with her career path in law enforcement. As if all of that was not daunting enough, who wants to be on the road when someone crosses over a center line or rear ends you at a stop light? Nope. We decided to play it safe, take in an early flick, get some takeout and return safely to the People’s Republic of Hillcrest before Dodge City broke out.
We saw The Producers: the film version of the wildly successful musical based on the famous Mel Brooks movie starring Gene Wilder and the late and wondrous Zero Mostel. The plot is familiar. Nathan Lane plays Max Bialystock, a Broadway producer whose productions are so execreble that the “Opening Night” marquee above his shows can be reversed to “Closed.” During an audit, nebbish accountant Leo Bloom, played here by Matthew Broderick, discovers that Max has been cooking the books. Perusing these phonied up numbers and reflecting on Max’s dreadful track record as a producer, he opines that under the right circumstances if you could get enough backers, an unscrupulous producer ( Leo: “Let’s assume you are dishonest.” Max: “You may assume that.”) could intentionally put on a lousy show in the hopes that it would bomb on opening night, thereby putting the loss on the backers and leaving all the invested money for the producers.
Max Bialystock is just that unscrupulous producer. And away we go! Max and Leo become partners. They find the worst musical ever written (“ Springtime for Hitler”) and hire the worst director on Broadway, flaming queen Roger Debris, to direct it into the ground. After getting the author of the play( the unhinged Naziphile Franz Liebkind ) and Debris (along with his equally flamboyant assistant Carman Ghia) on board, Max busies himself raising the money for the show the way he raises money for all of his other doomed ventures: by wooing wealthy elderly ladies all up and down Park Avenue to induce them to give up the money. Meanwhile, back at the office, nervous Leo falls in love with the secretary they have hired, Swedish blonde bombshell Ulla played by Uma Thurmon. Naturally, they decide to stick her in the upcoming production for no other reason that it is the producer’s prerogative to put his girlfriend in the cast. That is all I will say about the story for those of you who don’t know anything about the show.
I enjoyed the new version of “The Producers” very much. It was like being in the presence of an old friend. However, it struck me as a bit stagy for a motion picture. Lane and Broderick, who after portraying these characters for years on stage know each other like brothers, seem to sometimes pause between lines when they play off each other as if they are, by reflex, waiting for the laughter from the audience. It is a disconcerting effect. You wonder why somebody didn’t get them to pick up the pace. Matthew Broderick is good but he has to work way too hard. As Leo, he is pretending to be crazy, whereas Gene Wilder, the original Leo, is crazy. And suffice it to say, nobody will go home whistling a tune from The Producers. The music is just a vehicle to get this sucker onto the Great White way.
I was also struck by how The Producers has aged since it was first foisted upon an unsuspecting public by Brooks back in the Sixties, World War II was still fresh in the memory of its audience. Hitler jokes just don’t seem to have the same relevance now that they must have had back then. If indeed they had much relevance. Further, Zero Mostel’s Broadway, the one he sent up as the original Max, no longer exists. The characters in The Producers are period pieces along the lines of Damon Runyan’s with whom they have much in common. Finally, they had to go and tinker with the original ending for no good reason other than to give Nathan Lane an extra scene to do his shtick.
But all of this is small potatoes. It is clear that Mel Brooks loves these characters and he loves this book. And besides, this ain’t exactly Mourning Becomes Electra. It’s The Producers for Chrissakes. Who cares what he does to the ending?
Nathan Lane is just wonderful. He could recite the Code of Federal Regulations and make me laugh. Uma Thurman, who bumps and grinds around in porn star stiletto heels, is one serious physical presence. Not only does she tower over all the men in the cast except Farrell she dead lifts Broderick twice. And she and Matthew Broderick can really dance. I had no idea. Farrell’s Franz Liebkind is fairly restrained considering all of the mayhem going on around him. And considering it’s Will Farrell. Rubber faced Andrea Martin has a cameo but you have to look real hard to catch her. Even the ever servicable Michael McKean appears at the end.
Like I said, it is clear that Mel Brooks loves this show and he loves these characters. If you want to see a better movie about putting on a show, go rent Christopher Guest’s howlingly funny “Waiting for Guffman.” But if you want to see a labor of love that represents the final hurrah of a legend of comedy, see The Producers. The original version was conceived for Zero Mostel, a legend of both Broadway and the Yiddish Theatre and for Gene Wilder, an up and coming crazy person in those days. If you like this incarnation of The Producers you owe it to yourself to rent the older version to see its heritage.
I am glad that 2005 is in the rear view mirror. I am also glad it ended on such an enjoyable note. Like I said, it is always good to spend time with an old friend even if he is a lot more scattered than he used to be. Maybe there is hope for 2006 after all.
Happy New Year!!!
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