I never saw the stage production of Mel Brooks’s “The Producers.” It was the certifiable “it” item of the 2001 Tony Awards (taking in a record-breaking 12 wins).
Now I’m fairly sure the film production is the stage musical on celluloid, with the typical additives that enhance the overall world that inhabits the story. If so, I really wish I had been able to make it out to a theater four years ago to give this thing a look.
So, that said, if this brief reaction to the film comes off as a rave of the musical production many of you have already seen, forgive me – but this was a fun time at the movies.
Mel Brooks has established a long lineage of toilet humor as his career has progressed. His stories have gone from Oscar-caliber (Best Original Screenplay winner “The Producers” in 1968 – on which his musical production was based) to irreverent and fun schlock (“Spaceballs,” “Robin Hood: Men in Tights”). But “The Producers,” even from that seed planted so long ago, is about something much, much more. It is a nod to, and a slap in the face of the business of show.