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'The Producers' is a spoof with a lighter touch

The visual keys to Mel Brooks' third swipe at "The Producers" are the Broadway posters decorating a studio mock-up of New York's Shubert Alley. Serving as the backdrop for predictable shenanigans on the opening night of "Springtime for Hitler," the stinker that the sleazy producers hope will flop, are advertisements for three classics — "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music" and "My Fair Lady" — but also two less memorable musicals, "Redhead" and "Destry Rides Again."

Universal Pictures 'The Producers' 3 out of 5 stars Director: Susan Stroman Starring: Will Ferrell, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Gary Beach Run time: 134 minutes Release date: Dec. 16, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for sexual humor and references. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'The Producers'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Thus, a dyed-in-the-canvas musical devotee can date the movie's setting to 1959, the only year all five shows appeared on Broadway.

Brooks and director Susan Stroman leave these kinds of reverential fingerprints all over "The Producers," which manages to spoof old-fashioned Broadway and Hollywood musicals, while exemplifying the sweet, pastel style that Mel Brooks eviscerated in so many of his cinematic satires.

Devout believers in Brooks' dark, discordant 1968 movie of the same name will be dismayed by the winsome tone and the outright adoration for traditional musicals, especially from the 1950s. Admirers of his 2001 Broadway adaptation, however, will appreciate the lighter touches, Stroman's joyous choreography and, up to a point, the transfer of talent from the stage to the screen.

For those who missed Brooks' stage adaptation — which won 12 Tony Awards — stage stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are no Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. The originals, playing tasteless, ethics-absent producer Max Bialystock and fugitive accountant Leo Bloom, communicated a suppressed, desperate rage at society, an almost existential flirtation with disaster as they ferreted out the worst play, worst director and worst actors to float their elaborate scam (they sell redundant shares in the Hitler valentine to old ladies whom Max romances).

Lane, still Broadway's leading clown, is gifted with a sense of timing witnessed rarely since the days of vaudeville or television's so-called golden age. His double-takes are like wet, comedic yo-yos; his grunts, gasps and screeches slap and seduce the audience into submission. Although he sports Mostel's sad-sack look and comb-over, Lane never seems genuinely despondent. We know his Max is going to bounce back — and big-time, for another splashy showstopper.

Even more troublesome is Broderick's Leo. The former prince of teen comedies has made a second career on Broadway, aided by his supple tenor and a boyish charm that gradually diminishes with age. But movie close-ups reveal his features have regrouped into pale, pillowy lumps, making it difficult to identify him as the romantic lead. His scenes of hysteria are genuinely hysterical, but hardly is-he-genuinely-losing-it crazy like Wilder's.

Will Ferrell, who has played a platoon of zany characters since leaving "Saturday Night Live," seems unfulfilled as Nazi-loving, pigeon-cuddling playwright Franz Liebkind. Uma Thurman puts in a graceful turn as Ulla, the Swedish showgirl bombshell. We forgive her the stunt dancer on the more acrobatic moves, but find her long-legged classiness in contrast with Brooks' outrageously incorrect treatment of women.

In fact, the movie's chief shortcoming is that it will offend no one. The only actor who comes close to making the audience uncomfortable is Gary Beach as the cross-dressing, Judy-acting stage director Roger De Bris. Beach, whose creased, masculine features war with his character's extreme, eye-rolling swishiness, left mouths agape at the movie's preview screening, the kind of expression "Springtime for Hitler" audiences exhibited in both screen versions of "The Producers."

(Nobody is shocked by a sympathetic musical about Nazis in 2005. After all, we've seen musicals about serial murderers, presidential assassins and Argentine dictators.)

All this said, the movie tickles in a way that's removed from the original film and stage musical. The jokes are as old as the hills, but funny is funny — and nobody knows funny like Brooks, whose career spans three generations of take-no-prisoners American comedy.