Product Description

The exuberant atmosphere of the Broadway blockbuster is captured in "Recording The Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks," a new 85-minute film from the Emmy Award-winning director Susan Froemke and Maysles Films. The documentary candidly captures the excitement of translating the show into a complete experience for the recording's audience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34044 in VHS
• Released on: 2001-10-02
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Color, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1

Amazon.com
If you've ever wanted to sit in on a recording session for a Broadway cast album--one that just happens to be one of the most successful in recent history-- you're in for a treat. Recording "The Producers": A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks follows creator Brooks, stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and the rest of the company as they create the cast recording for the musical that won a record 12 Tony Awards and became the hottest ticket on Broadway in the spring of 2001. Brooks provides plot background and historical anecdotes between the 14 musical numbers that are excerpted, including "The King of Broadway," "I Wanna Be a Producer," "When You Got It, Flaunt It," and the inevitable "Springtime for Hitler." Watching this 85-minute documentary is no substitute for seeing the live show (or the 1968 film that inspired it), but it's an enlightening and entertaining companion to the CD. --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

Front Row Seat - No Long Wait, No Hundred Dollar Bills
Originally shown on PBS, this is a documentary of the recording of "The Producers" cast album. "The Producers," the hit Broadway show that made a sweep at the Tony's, and continues to do so at the box office, has a lot of funny people involved - Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, and Mel Brooks - and this movie captures them in some candid moment. Fortunately, the editors are not the MTV music video-type; we get to see whole songs being recorded, which is often not the case in these behind-the-scenes videos. Many songs are included, as well as interviews with Mel Brooks, who talks about how the show came about, the plot, and the cast members. One can see what a warm person Brooks is. And for those who cannot afford tickets to the Broadway show, or have to wait for months for availability, this is the next best thing. This video contains footage of Broderick doing a Marlon Brando impression, Susan Stroman praising the cast members, and more. We also get to see Lane getting a little nervous in the recording studio - at one point, he complains of not being able to hear himself, and gets snippy (or is he just being funny?) with a woman working the equipment. An extremely enlightening look at the hectic recording (Mr. Brooks keeps remarking, astonished, "I can't believe we only get one day" - every hour of overtime means thousands of more dollars) of a cast album.

Seen the show? Have the album? Buy this anyway, here's why
Since I won't be going to New York anytime soon, my chances of seeing The Producers on Broadway is zero. So I was delighted to get this DVD, a documentary and behind-the-scenes look at the recording of the cast album for The Producers. It contains nearly all the songs from The Producers and excerpts of Brooks, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in some candid (and funny) moments.
If you believe (as I do) that watching musical actors and actresses rehearse their songs is enlightening, intriguing and fascinating, you won't be disappointed by this. Of course, if you originally saw this on PBS and recorded it, you may feel you don't need another copy. But I found the sound quality of this DVD to be far superior to the typical home recording quality (and I missed it on PBS anyway). Also, be assured that the WHOLE songs are recorded here, not brief little excerpts. What fun it was to watch this one!

A blast! This is actually a one-hour and 40 minute feature!
SIMPLY SUPER!

Yes, this program aired on PBS, but it didn't have those precious extra minutes that are just as hilarious as the 85 minutes that make up the "centerpiece" of this DVD/video.

The wonderful thing about "Recording The 'Producers' - A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks," is instead of the usual stuff you get with backstage documentaries, here you get the cast and crew occasionally "turning to the camera," ad-libbing stuff that seems as "live" as the show itself. In several spots, they make jokes about the documentary itself, while at other times, they are oblivious to the camera while concentrating on what they're doing.

Yet after watching about an hour and 40 minutes of engrossing material (with the extra footage), this DVD/video, like the actual stage show itself (which runs about three hours including intermission), you still want more.

Perhaps my only gripe is you never see the players "on stage." Well this is, after all, a documentary about the recording of a cast album. But what you do see provides enough voltage that it makes you want to borrow a fortune to fly to New York and to pay whatever it takes to get a seat to see a show that will run forever -- but sadly -- not with this original award-winning cast. (...)

Best of all, what you get here that YOU DON'T GET in New York, is Mel Brooks, talking to the camera, explaining with tremendous charm and humor, EVERYTHING about how the show came to be, its plot, its songs and all of the elements the audience can't see unless they're sitting in the St. James Theater. He tells you everything in chronological order, even acting out the parts and dubbing in his one line into the cast album ("don't be dumb, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!").

This is critically important because most people outside of New York, which means most of America, still have NO CLUE about this, the greatest musical in Broadway history. When Amazon buyers see this video/DVD, they'll understand WHY "The Producers" DESERVES all of its hype. You can't OVERSELL it!

Every song is a show-stopper, a throwback to melodies and riffs that feel like a "greatest hits" package of the best musicals ever made. And the lyrics are so irreverent that you can only imagine your pleasure doubling if you could see the visuals that are associated with each song. Heck, the DANCING AND COSTUMES you don't see are the other half of the fun!

(...)Mel says out loud, "you know what we're doing would make a great movie." That is, as a musical on film with costumes and the whole nine yards! And then he says Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick and the whole cast would be in it! There's a shot of Nathan and Matt grinning sheepishly, for they know what we also know: Yeah Mel, and pigs will fall from the sky.

By the time a Hollywood version of this musical is released, Mel will be past 90 and the cast will be too old for their roles. And everyone knows movies aren't allowed to compete with Broadway. (...)

I would have liked to see snippets of the actual show on stage. We know Mel has a video of the entire show, complete with audience applause and cutaways and close-ups. And I'm more sad that we'll never get to see it. We'll get stuck with the filmed version by Hollywood, that is, if we live that long.

So what to do?

Well, if you can't get to New York, if you don't want to settle for the traveling touring company that will probably make its way through America about five years from now, if you don't want to spend $$$ for a center orchestra seat at the St. James Theatre from a scalper, but you still want to capture what it was like, with this inaugural cast, to turn "The Producers" from a three-star 1967 film into a five-star 2001 stage musical, then BUY this! (...)