Gratuitous Llama Netflix Movie Review

The Producers (1968).

After all these years I finally got around to seeing this movie. My opinion? Well......I thought Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder were great, but there just seemed to be something missing from the overall production. As if there were some ideas that just didn't get played out as far as they could have been. This was one of those rare instances when I thought a movie should have been longer than it actually was.

This makes me want to see the updated version with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, largely to see what Mel Brooks did with it after thirty-odd years to chew on things:

I don't recall what kind of reviews the 2005 movie got but I don't remember it making that big a splash.

As it happens, the Missus and I caught the road company stage performance of The Producers with Lewis Stadlin and Alan Ruck at the Kennedy Center a couple years ago. That, I recollect, was an awful lot of fun.

Thinking on all this, I have a very hazy and not-really-thought-out theory that stories about stage productions do best as stage productions and do not readily translate to the movie screen. One case in point is Kiss Me, Kate. While I've never seen it on stage, the movie version was generally stinky with a few bright spots here and there (although I like it nonetheless). Another is Noises Off. The movie was so-so, but the Missus and I went to see a stage production put on by her major advisor in Lynchburg, Virginia years ago that was absolutely, hysterically first rate.

I realize that this is a pretty limited pool from which to be drawing conclusions, but for now I'm sticking with my theory.