The Producers (2005 film)

1. "Overture" - Orchestra
2. "Opening Night" - Opening Nighters
3. "We Can Do It" - Max and Leo
4. "I Wanna Be a Producer" - Leo, Accountants, Mr. Marks and Dancing Chorus Girls
5. "Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop" - Franz, Max, and Leo
6. "Keep It Gay" - Roger, Carmen, Max, Leo, and Company
7. "When You Got It, Flaunt It" - Ulla
8. "Along Came Bialy" - Max and Little Old Ladies
9. "That Face" - Leo and Ulla
10. "Haben Sie gehört das Deutsche Band?" - Franz
11. "You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night" - Roger, Carmen, Franz, Max, and Leo
12. "Springtime for Hitler (Part I)" - Soldiers, Girls, and Company
13. "Heil Myself" - Roger and Company
14. "Springtime for Hitler (Part II)" - Roger, Ulla, and Company
15. "You'll Find Your Happiness in Rio" - Samba Band
16. "Betrayed" - Max
17. "'Til Him" - Max, Leo, and Little Old Ladies
18. "Prisoners of Love (Broadway)" - Prisoners, Ulla, and Company
19. "Prisoners of Love (Leo and Max)" - Leo and Max
20. "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway" - Leo and Max
21. "The Hop-Clop Goes On" - Franz
22. "Goodbye!" - Leo, Max, Ulla, Roger, Carmen, Mr. Marks, Accountants, Dancing Chorus Girls, and Mel Brooks
    Mel Brooks
    Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
    
    
23. "The King of Broadway" - Max (deleted scene on DVD)

Reception

The Producers received mixed or average reviews from critics. One positive online review said: "Outrageous musical numbers evoke most of the laughs in this movie funfest. Eat your heart out, Rockettes, because here comes a little old ladies’ chorus line (“Along Came Bialy”) to rival your success. Watch out, real-life producers, for an actor named Gary Beach (“Heil Myself”). Never, and I mean never, hire him if you want your play to flop! And stop spinning in your grave, Florenz Ziegfeld. Those “Springtime for Hitler and Germany” showgirls are all in good fun. Finally, congratulations to director Susan Stroman, for making this Broadway gem into a film that old-time movie musical fans like me can cheer about."

Nathan Rabin wrote: "Between the rough start and an ending that lingers too long, there's a solid hour or so of terrific entertainment that serves as both a giddy tribute to Broadway musicals and a parody thereof. Thirty-seven years after Brooks declared war on taste and propriety, 'The Producers' has lost its power to shock or offend, but it's retained its ability to amuse."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 cited difficulty in reviewing the film due to familiarity with the original 1968 film. However, he did state that the new version was "fun" and gave it three stars (out of a possible four). Said Ebert: "The new movie is a success, that I know. How much of a success, I cannot be sure."

In addition to these positive reviews, it was nominated for four Golden Globes (including nominations for actors Ferrell and Lane).

Most negative reviews suggested that the performances were tuned more for the theater rather than for film. Stephanie Zacharek observed: "'The Producers' is essentially a filmed version of a stage play, in which none of the characters' expressions or line readings have been scaled down to make sense on-screen. Every gesture is played out as if the actors were 20 feet away in real life, which means that, by the time the performers are magnified on the big screen, they're practically sitting in your lap. The effect is something like watching a 3-D Imax film without the special glasses."

Allusions

• In the song "Opening Night", a newspaper theatre review is shown on the screen; on the byline, credit is given to Addison DeWitt, the theatre critic played by George Sanders
  George Sanders
  George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
  
   in All About Eve
  All About Eve
  All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve", by Mary Orr.The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star...
  
  .
• When Leo Bloom shouts "Stop the world, I wanna get on!" it is a reference to the musical Stop the World - I Want to Get Off
  Stop the World - I Want to Get Off
  Stop the World – I Want to Get Off is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.Set against the backdrop of a circus, it focuses on Littlechap, whose first major step towards improving his lot is to marry Evie, his boss's daughter...
  
  .
• When Max is visiting the old ladies in their apartment buildings, he pushes several intercom buttons, labeled with names of the residents they refer to. Many of these are references: Anne Bancroft
  Anne Bancroft
  Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....
  
  , The Great Gatsby
  The Great Gatsby
  The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
  
  , the name of a department store
  Bloomingdale's
  Bloomingdale's is an American department store owned by Macy's, Inc. .Bloomingdale's started in 1861 when brothers Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale started selling hoop-skirts in their Ladies Notions' Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side...
  
  , the Tisch School of Arts and Tisch Hospital at New York University
  New York University
  New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
  
  , Citizen Kane
  Citizen Kane
  Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
  
  , Edith Wharton
  Edith Wharton
  Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
  
  , Andrew Carnegie
  Andrew Carnegie
  Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
  
  , John Jacob Astor V, John D. Rockefeller
  John D. Rockefeller
  John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
  
  , and Joseph Pulitzer
  Joseph Pulitzer
  Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
  
  , who established the Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
  .
• While talking about the $2,000 missing from Max's books after "Funny Boy", the calendar behind Max and Leo reads June 16. The date is known as "Bloomsday" (later referenced when Leo and Max agree go ahead with their plan) by fans of James Joyce
  James Joyce
  James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
  
   and his novel Ulysses
  Ulysses (novel)
  Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
  
  . Joyce's character Leopold Bloom experiences extraordinary things on what's supposed to be an ordinary day - June 16.
• At the end of the song "The Hop-Clop Goes On" Franz whispers, "Don't forget to buy Mein Kampf
  Mein Kampf
  Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
  
  , in paperback
  Paperback
  Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
  
  . Available near you at Borders Books
  Borders Group
  Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
  
   or Barnes & Noble
  Barnes & Noble
  Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
  
   und Amazon.com
  Amazon.com
  Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
  
  ."
• When Max and Leo are searching for the worst play ever written in Act 1, Max reads out the opening sentence of The Metamorphosis
  The Metamorphosis
  The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...
  
  by Franz Kafka
  Franz Kafka
  Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
  
  , but dismisses it as "too good".
• Young Frankenstein
  Young Frankenstein
  Young Frankenstein is a 1974 American comedy film directed by Mel Brooks and starring Gene Wilder as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The supporting cast includes Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Richard...
  
  ; while in Sing Sing prison, the inmates are seen rehearsing a dance for Prisoners of Love. This is the same dance done by Dr. Frederick Frankenstein and the Frankenstein Monster.

External links