The Producers (2005 Movie Soundtrack)

As Mel Brooks's The Producers returns to the big screen where it began, this soundtrack completes a trilogy of sorts that also includes the original 1968 movie soundtrack and the 2001 original cast recording. Broadway director Susan Stroman is still at the helm, and budgets being larger in Hollywood than on the Great White Way, Douglas Besterman polishes his own orchestrations to a luscious sheen. The Broadway principals also make the trip, including leads Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom; both could probably play these parts in their sleep by now, but they still go at it with ferocious energy. Castwise, the two big changes are Uma Thurman as Swedish bombshell Ulla and Will Ferrell as Nazi writer Franz Liebkind. Thurman does well enough on "When You Got It, Flaunt It," but she flounders a bit on her contribution to "That Face," Brooks's excellent tribute to 1950s MGM musicals. Ferrell displays natural musical chops, as evidenced by his "Der Guten Tag Clog-Hop," which pops up again as the horrifyingly cheesy "The Hop-Clop Goes On." (All these years playing inept music teacher Marty Culp on Saturday Night Live must have helped.) Other changes from the show include the addition of a new song, "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway" (performed by Lane and Broderick); the Bialystock track "The King of Broadway," which appears at the very beginning of the show, was cut from the film but pops up as a bonus track. In the end, no matter which version you prefer, The Producers endures as a comic supernova. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

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