Fridae

If you are going to watch The Producers soon, here are some tips: Don't expect to see a movie. Expect to see an extravagant musical with over-the-top acting, slapstick jokes and eye-popping numbers. Expect everything to be big, big, big. Choose seats that are as far away from the screen as possible, so you will not be overwhelmed by the staggering, larger-than-life quality. And then maybe, just maybe, you could enjoy The Producers.

Now, I don't mean to be patronising with those tips. It is just that The Producers opened last Thursday and a few friends who saw it told me how much they hated it, and how stupendously big and flamboyant it all was. One friend walked out of the show midway, because he was annoyed by the loud gags and exaggerated acting. For the first time, I heard a gay person call something "too campy." Who knew LGBT folks have limits when it comes to camp?

The Producers, as you might know, is adapted from a highly successful New York stage musical. When the stage show debuted on Broadway in April 2001, it received standing ovations and sensational reviews. In an instant, it became the hottest ticket in town. For two straight years, the show was sold out months in advance. Audiences in New York paid as much as US$480 (S$773) per ticket from legal vendors, while the scalpers charged even more.

But now audiences can see the film version for as cheaply as S$9. Isn't that a steal?

If, like me, you are a natural born cheapskate, you would find a way to enjoy this musical by hook or by crook - preferably both. The fact is The Producers is an excellent musical. It boasts terrific comic acting, dazzling production design and show-stopping singing-and-dancing. But it has been poorly adapted to the film screen because director Susan Stroman, who directed the successful stage version, is simply not familiar with the mechanics of filmmaking.

The Producers stars gay actor Nathan Lane as a lousy Broadway producer who cannot stage anything but flops. Along comes Matthew Broderick, a shy accountant who has always wanted to be Broadway producer. He tells Nathan that by cooking the books, a person could make a fortune from producing a huge flop.

Hoping to become overnight millionaires, the two begin a search for Broadway's most awful script and director. They read hundreds of scripts until they stumble upon an insanely vulgar musical called Springtime For Hitler, a pro-Nazi gay romp written by an insane Hitler lover (Will Ferrell).

With the perfectly awful script in hand, Nathan and Matthew try to find the worst director in New York to direct it. And this is where the film reaches its highest point of hilarity.

Our duo meets up with the cross-dressing director Gary Beach, who comes with his own Village People entourage. And when Gary and his merry men break into the riotous song called Keep It Gay ("Keep it snappy! Keep it happy! Keep it gaaaay!"), it is by far the gayest thing I have ever seen in recent memory.

This segment alone is worth more than the price of the ticket, and it is almost enough to make one forgive the major problems this film has. For sure, director Susan Stroman was the wrong person to helm the film. She is a veteran Broadway director-choreographer who directed the 2001 stage version and turned it into the biggest musical sensation in New York's history. But she does not know her way around a movie camera.

Oftentimes, she simply plunks the camera squarely in front of the action, as if we were still watching The Producers as theatre audiences instead of film audiences. The big and exaggerated stage-style acting has not been toned down to fit the smaller movie screen. Add to them the big brassy numbers, and you can easily get that nauseating feeling of sitting at the front row of a very loud and cheap musical extravaganza.

But all is not lost. With proper mental conditioning, you may still be able to enjoy the film version. Before entering the cinema, tell yourself this: "I am about to watch an acclaimed Broadway musical which won 12 Tony awards, the highest ever in Broadway history. New Yorkers coughed up hundreds of dollars to see it. I am only paying S$9. So I won't quibble over the fact that the stage show has been badly adapted onto the film screen. I will revel in the fact that I get to see much of the original staging with most of the original cast."

If that still doesn't work, well at least you only paid S$9 instead of US$450. Incidentally, the original 1968 movie version from which the stage show was adapted is available for loan at the Esplanade Library. Now that one comes for free.