Toothless shtick, banal tunes sink ‘Producers’

The latest incarnation of "The Producers" is one of those movies with no reason to exist except for the greed of its producers.

Fitting, I guess, for a story about cynical con artists whose forte is the entertainment business.

Shamefully uninspired and hopelessly passé, the screen adaptation of the Broadway musical farce — itself a re-staging of Mel Brooks' original film — is a triumph of stamina over substance. It has nothing to say, but camouflages its emptiness with energy.

Mediocrity, of course, is not a crime. The real offense here is that Mel Brooks and company have "de-Jewified" one of the touchstones of American Jewish comedy.

The original film was released in 1968, as the glittering period when musical theater represented a kind of high art for the masses was ending. But Broadway still had some residual glamour and class, which the film cheerfully satirized.

Nowadays, musicals (in the guise of ersatz pop-opera spectaculars) are again luring Manhattan tourists, but the producer as Old Country lecher is long gone. Yet Brooks didn't bother to update the musical, which comes to the screen intact.

Shameless Broadway producer Max Bialystok (a hammy Nathan Lane, reprising his stage performance) and nerdy accountant Leopold Bloom (the 99 percent charisma-free Matthew Broderick, also from the Broadway production) set out to stage a flop — thereby fleecing their investors.

Searching for the worst play imaginable, Max and Leo discover a paean to the Fuhrer called "Springtime for Hitler." When the two Jews meet playwright Franz Liebkind, they find a crazy Nazi talking to pet pigeons. Nonetheless, they'll say and do anything to get the rights to his play.

It's impossible to recall how shocking "The Producers" was in 1968. Even though "Hogan's Heroes" had been on the air three years, making fun of Nazis was still a touchy subject.

Further, the original "Producers" implied that Liebkind wasn't just loony but possibly a war criminal. To portray Jews so greedy they're willing to overlook the Holocaust to sign a deal was about as taboo as it got in 1968.

There's nothing remotely audacious or even funny about the treatment of Liebkind — or Max and Leo, for that matter — in the new film. For one thing, parodies of Nazis have become so common in the ensuing 35 years that they're now a cliché. (Even the original "Producers" has lost much of its bite, though that's not Brooks' fault.)

But the bland casting of the roles of Max and Leo robs the story of any Jewish resonance and the characters' interaction with Liebkind of both its audacity and discomfiting impact.

Compared to Jewish force of nature Zero Mostel, who played Max with lascivious gusto in the 1968 film, Lane is a pallid, sixth-generation Xerox of Jackie Gleason.

The endearingly daffy Gene Wilder portrayed Leo in the original as a personification of the repressed Jewish nebbish. His delivery of "I'm hysterical and I'm wet" simultaneously captured and spoofed the stereotype of whiny mama's boys.

It's hard to imagine anyone matching Wilder's indelible performance today, perhaps because neurotics have been caricatured almost as much as Nazis. But the namby-pamby Broderick offers nothing but a generic dweeb with pursed lips.

If the 1968 film was aimed at Jews and other educated urbanites, the musical version of "The Producers" was intended for the broadest possible audience. Shtick replaced satire, and the undeniably inspired musical number from the original film ("Springtime for Hitler") was surrounded by a slew of weak, perfunctory songs.

Mel Brooks was always the kind of guy who'd throw anything into a movie for a laugh. The movie version of "The Producers" musical suggests that he's become a guy who'll do anything for a dollar.




"The Producers" opens nationwide Friday, Dec. 16.