Showtime for Hitler again

The Producers
***

First it was a movie, then it was a Broadway musical. Now it's a Broadway musical movie. I think the next thing will probably be claymation." So says the indefatigable Mel Brooks, and I wouldn't put it past him.

He has won so many awards for one or other transformation of this tall tale of a Hitler musical, that he must wonder whether he is specially blessed with showbiz luck.

The present incarnation is based more on the Broadway and London theatrical success than on the original film of happy memory, which starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. This version is never quite as good as that 1968 movie, but it is less uneven.

It has a new cast who don't totally survive comparison with the old (led by Nathan Lane as the producer convinced by his comfort blanket-sucking accountant that engineering a cast-iron flop will get him more money than a success) but it is quite good enough to prevent a film critic's nostalgia taking too strong a hold.

Matthew Broderick takes the role of the accountant, originally played by Wilder; Will Ferrell plays the Hitleradoring writer of Springtime for Hitler and Uma Thurman is the dimly sexy Swede, Ulla, taken on as a hopelessly insufficient leading lady.

They are all fine, but as much the stars as anybody are Gary Beach and Roger Bart as the outrageously camp gay lovers who produce and stage manage the show. They are magnificent, provided you don't baulk at the spiteful parody involved.

Susan Stroman, who directs, cannot entirely escape the charge of putting theatre on the screen, rather than producing pure cinema.

The whole does seem rather overloaded with new songs and old jokes, not all of which are that wonderful but most of which might seem more appropriate on the stage. The new tunes suffice but the old ones encased in the musical itself are best.

Nevertheless, provided you don't take offence at its conception, which takes the mickey, sometimes cruelly, out of a good deal more than just the Führer (there are the Germans and Swedes, Jewish Broadway producers, showbiz hopefuls, homosexuals and even homing pigeons) the film has much to commend it.

Brooks is capable of making most people laugh, having shocked them first, and his team here provides exactly the wholehearted exuberance he needs.

I still prefer the old film. But one may be remembering it through rose-tinted spectacles. Perhaps it just seemed more surprising then.