Louis Chilton — Theater Critic

It’s hard to resist incessant comparisons to the original, so closely does The Producers hew to it; all of the funniest lines are ripped verbatim from the 1967 screenplay. (“Hitler… there was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon. Two coats!”) The variations are chiefly musical, the lively and bombastic songs dotted across the musical’s two acts, all written by Brooks himself – an artist who always has one foot in vaudevillian tradition.