I know that I have liked Wilder and Mostel separately in the past - Wilder I can't remember what for, Mostel for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Which was Latin 1 class. I don't know why it was, but it was.
Gene Wilder cracks me the hell up. (He's also, off the top of my head, the original Willy Wonka and the sidekick in Blazing Saddles, if either of those mean something to you.) Partly, this is because one of the characters in a novel I'm not working on is clearly played by him, and this is the only time I've ever had one of those "This character is rendered by that person" moments.
I note that I am in the habit of occasionally quoting Wilder's character from the original Producers at appropriate moments. Specifically: "I'm wet! I'm in pain! And I'm still hysterical!"
I loved that line as delivered by Wilder; not so thrilled with Broderick's take on it in the new movie musical. but I loved the new movie musical (more in comments to the OP).
Just a quick note. The orginal movie was not a musical and some of the stuff, notably most of the Nazi scenes, were cut or changed by the studio since they didn't want to offend anyone. And this was in the 60's.
I've not seen the new Producers yet, but understand it's closer to the stage verision. Which I did see, and my wife and I still laugh over the seen with the birds.
Having seen The Producers in all three incarnations (orignal movie, stage musical, movie musical), I will say that this is the least consistent of the three but it is still damn funny. The weakest points in the movie musical are where Broderick and Lane try to quote the performances of Mostel and Wilder (especially Broderick with his reading of "I'm wet! I'm wet... and I'm still hysterical!"), but after about the first twenty minutes (once we get past the fountain scene) the movie musical really comes into its own.
Do rent the original movie; it is hysterically funny although somewhat dated in places (Dick Shawn's character of LSD --excised from the sage and movie musicals-- is a bad flower child parody saved only by Shawn's own manic genius). Also, I highly recommend you get for yourself as a birthday present the soundtrack recording of the Broadway cast of The Producers, just to hear "When You've Got It (Flaunt It!)" sung by Cady Hoffman. When it's time for Ulla to belt, Cady belts.
I haven't seen a lot of things. I don't read that much. I don't get out that much. Movies in general haven't pushed me to go see them in rather a while, with only a handful of exceptions. I consciously chose to ignore The Matrix. I've tried to grind through Mel Brooks (I was going to say Mel Gibson - there's an image for you - Mel Gibson's The Producers!), but Blazing Saddles seemed very worn out and dated and I was afraid The Producers would be the same.
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Which was Latin 1 class. I don't know why it was, but it was.
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I note that I am in the habit of occasionally quoting Wilder's character from the original Producers at appropriate moments. Specifically: "I'm wet! I'm in pain! And I'm still hysterical!"
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I've not seen the new Producers yet, but understand it's closer to the stage verision. Which I did see, and my wife and I still laugh over the seen with the birds.
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Do rent the original movie; it is hysterically funny although somewhat dated in places (Dick Shawn's character of LSD --excised from the sage and movie musicals-- is a bad flower child parody saved only by Shawn's own manic genius). Also, I highly recommend you get for yourself as a birthday present the soundtrack recording of the Broadway cast of The Producers, just to hear "When You've Got It (Flaunt It!)" sung by Cady Hoffman. When it's time for Ulla to belt, Cady belts.
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Heck, Spaceballs has been a bit worn.
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