The problem with The Producers movie musical?

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:20am

I really don't understand it. The movie is VERY true to the stage show and is almost word for word. Why would people not like that? People bitch about it not being any different from the show and then I see the same people bitch if another stage to screen transfer is not true to the show that it's based off of. I found the movie fantastic. Nathan Lane, Gary Beach, Roger Bart and Will Ferelle were all fantastic. Not to mention the countless cameos. Uma Thurman and Matthew Broderick were just okay and I will admit, that the directing was not that good, but I found it very well made. The only problem I had was with the directing. Brooks should have directed this himself, but he got Stroman for a MOVIE. Not really a strong move, but I still don't think the movie suffered because of it.

Just sayin...

[KQuill]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:23am

I think its harder to get the laughs on film than onstage. I still love the movie though.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:24am

It's not in terms of being faithful. The movie practically WAS the Broadway production filmed. 90% of the sets looked cheap, Uma Thurman can't sing nor dance making her immediately uncastable as Ulla, whataver antics worked for Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick onstage didn't work for film, and to be honest, the show just ISN'T strong enough material to have the movie be so faithful to it.

And some cameos were great, others seemed unneeded. Did we NEED Debra Monk as a practically mute Old Lady? She didn't have any lines in the final film. Or Andrea Martin?

It had its moments, but it was just so lackluster. It seriously seemed as if someone had filmed the show at the St. James and just removed the audience's response.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:26am

The one performance that was 100% fantastic from start to finish without any slip ups was that of Roger Bart. He was wonderful.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:27am

"It seriously seemed as if someone had filmed the show at the St. James and just removed the audience's response. "

wickedfan hit the nail on the head. I enjoyed the movie, having never seen the stage show, but it didn't work as a movie.

[Raviolisun]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:29am

I wasn't very familiar with the stage show before I saw the movie, but I just wasn't for me. I didn't really like the music or the comedy. I really enjoyed Roger Bart, though.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:31am

The fact that this show beat out The Full Monty for Best Score, Book, and Choreography is a travesty. "Michael Jordan's Ball" beats "Along Came Bialy" ANY day of the week.

[blaxx]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:31am

I really don't understand it. The movie is VERY true to the stage show and is almost word for word. Why would people not like that?

That is your main problem, why would anyone like to watch a movie that is "true" to the stage show? For that matter, they should just have taped a performance.
That is why most musical adaptations fail - they don't consider the source then re-imagine it for a different art form. Instead they try to force theatre on film, and that always goes wrong.

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:31am

I didn't think the sets looked cheap at all. I think they were amazing. Especially the Shubert Alley set.

Debra Monk and Andrea Martin actually had lines before their scenes were cut. And even if they didn't have lines, wasn't it good enough to see them as the little old ladies? It was fun and apparently they wanted to do it.

Uma was bad. I understand that. But it wasn't bad enough to ruin the entire film. And Nathan and Matthew didn't click the same way, but they did have the chemistry in the movie. And if anyone here saw them in The Odd Couple (which a lot of people did) they both acted the same way they did in the movie of The Producers. I don't think it was the fact that what they were doing on stage just didn't work on film, Matthew Broderick's performance on screen was almost completely different than it was on stage. I always thought they should've gotten Martin Short for the movie, but then that would have defeated the pourpos of even making the movie...i hope I made sense. lol.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:31am

I agree with those who enjoyed Roger Bart. He and Will Ferrel were the best things about the movie.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:35am

Seeing them wasn't fun. It was random. It's great that they had fun doing it. But I kind of just sat there going "Wait, is that Debra Monk? Why the f**k is she just sitting there?"

Updated On: 4/18/07 at 12:35 AM

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:38am

Well, like I said, she did have a couple of lines but they had to cut it out due to time. It happens to the best of them.

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:39am

The Producers is broad, slapstick comedy, and that really only works when there is a live audience to play off of. This is the kind of show that absolutely must be seen live, or else it just doesn't work. I saw it on tour and really enjoyed it. The movie was duller than dry toast.

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 12:42am

All other Mel Brooks movies are exactly like this and they go down in movie history. Movies such as Blazzing Sadels, Young Frankenstein and The Producers (1962). Why would this be any different? Just my honest opinion.

[jackson992]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:21am

I thought it was ok but not great. It pales in comparison to such classics as Reefer Madness IMO. The biggest problem I had was the weak performance of Broderick.

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:28am

There's a whole list of reasons in my book why it sucked, most of which have already been mentioned.

1. It was just like watching the stage version, complete with over-the-top performances that were not reined in for the close confines of a movie theater. Witness "Betrayed!". I don't think the camera did anything more than pan back and forth for four minutes.
2. Uma Thurman is no singer. She fell off the high notes, and slid into some vocal rut that made "If You Got It" into a dreadful number, as opposed to the sexy and funny song it should have been.
3. IMO, the music and lyrics are pretty lousy to begin with. You can feel the joke set up coming from a mile away, and there are only a few songs I can still remember today. These are also the moments which worked fairly well in the movie ("Keep it Gay", "I Wanna Be a Producer").
4. I really don't like Matthew Broderick's voice that much. He sounds constipated and strained half the time. I miss the days where he could play a slick character, like Ferris Bueller or Finch in "H2$", instead of playing nebbish whiny men.
5. I think maybe I just am prejudiced against this show to begin with. The fact that it won so damn many Tonys was just shocking to me, but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. But then when I compared the show to some of the others nominees, something seriously seemed amiss. Plus, I don't find Mel Brooks that funny. Apart from "Young Frankenstein", I've never seen any movie of his that managed to keep my attention (though I've never seen the original "Producers"). "History of the World Part I" felt labored and drawn out, and "Spaceballs" was much too little far too late to be funny.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:28am

I never felt this show worked that well on stage either. It seemed dusty to me. The music wasn't that great. I ended up walking out of the theatre thinking,"THIS is what people are raving about?"
The original movie is a classic and IMHO stands alone.

[i_heart_roger_bart]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:35am

I love the movie musical (obviously). But, I think, other than Uma Thurman's "performance" (if you could call it that) one of the main reasons it didn't work is because it's a very Broadway/New York oriented show. So many of it is played off of Broadway jokes. The show relies so much on the audience's knowledge of Broadway and of New York itself. That's just my opinion, but I kind of think that's why a lot of the people back where I'm from didn't quite get it.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:40am

The cast aside, I don't like it because of what was filmed and then cut. If they put all those deleted scenes and songs back into the film like a directors cut version I would like the movie a hell of a lot more.

[jackson992]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:46am

You forgot to mention the amazing Robin Hood Men In Tights! Now that I would love to see a musical of.

[goldenstate5]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:46am

All right, let's just get one thing clear: if you didn't like the show onstage, you didn't like the movie. No need to state that here.

Anyways, I like the movie pretty much because it allows me to have the show on DVD. (I cut to the deleted scenes after Opening Night and play King of Broadway to satisfy myself) I mean, I love the show. (yes, even in its bastardized Vegas version, too) But I can see why the movie wasn't hardly up to standards.

So, first off, Stroman tries to pass off her directing as an intended homage to old MGM musicals of the '50s, which is, owning many, a load of bull. Yes, those movie musicals featured a lot of still shots, panning back and forth...but they never lasted the entire damn song! The only number that gets the idea correct is King of Broadway, ironically cut from the film.

Number two, the Producers REQUIRES an audience, and let me state that again: REQUIRES an audience. Absolutely needs it to be enjoyed. On Christmas Day 2005, my theatre was to the brim with Brooks fans and the entire movie was enjoyable. On New Year's Eve, seeing it again, the theatre was less full, and less enjoyable. Then on DVD, later in 2006, by myself, it was...not enjoyable really at all. I thought it was the fact that I knew the show by heart then, but that wasn't it. I tried again. Nothing. Then I tried with my friends, and all of the sudden, the movie went gangbusters with me. It's contagious humor, and you need an audience to respond, that's the ONLY way it works. If you're watching it alone, try watching with people.

And if you need any proof of this, watch Nathan Lane's reaction to Franz's "Adolph Elizabeth Hitler" explaination...it seems a reaction he would play onstage, HOLDING FOR LAUGHS. That's correct, Stroman directed the movie with spots to hold for laughter in a movie. That goes into the whole transfer methods of art, from stage-to-film stuff that people have been gabbing about for what must seem like centuries...and on this movie, you know what, they're right.

The Producers, as a movie, is still damn funny. It just could've been better as a film...

[Julian2]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:46am

"Michael Jordan's Ball" beats "Along Came Bialy" ANY day of the week.

And "Sirens" could kick both their asses.

The movie was bad.

Sometimes faithfulness works: see My Fair Lady
Sometimes it dosen't: see The Producers
Sometimes diversion works: see Cabaret
Sometimes it dosen't: see The Wiz

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 1:55am

"On Christmas Day 2005, my theatre was to the brim with Brooks fans and the entire movie was enjoyable."

See, I don't know. I saw it with a full theatre, and there was really no response from the audience, save for "Keep it Gay" and some of the dialogue. Maybe none of them were Mel Brooks fans, I didn't really ask, but if so, then it requires a dependence on a select group of people to make up the whole audience, which is something you really can't expect a movie like that to do.

[Julian2]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 2:12am

^Ha, I saw it with a full theatre too. Not to much response, but I will never forget seeing it with another musical savvy friend. Because when Leo said "Stop the World! I wanna get on!", he cackled at the top of his lungs and was the only one. It was brilliant! I didn't laugh because I saw it coming, but he just couldn't contain himself.

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:07am

Exactly--on film much of what works in theatre felt forced--ie the performances were still SOOOOO broad and "theatrical"--I foudn the whole show kinda headache inducing in movie theatres (but I dnever did see the stage version and it's not really my kinda show I admit) I did like a handful of moments