From the screen to the stage and back to the screen again, Mel Brooks' Oscar-winning-cum-Tony-winning hit "The Producers" proves once again that an effeminate Adolf Hitler, backed by a chorus of singing and dancing Nazis, is as riotously funny today as it was when it debuted nearly 40 years ago. While the plot of the original film remains intact -- a hack producer and his protégé team up to create the biggest Broadway flop of all time -- the interjection of full-scale razzle-dazzle musical numbers flows so perfectly into the narrative that you'll be forgetting what the original film was like without the sing-song additions.

Carried by the comic genius of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, the latest addition to "The Producers" corpus has much to live up to. Brooks' 1968 film garnered three Academy Awards, and his 1998 musical didn't disappoint, either, earning a total of 12 Tony awards -- the most Tonys every awarded to a single play. It should come as no surprise, then, that Brooks stuck with an "if it ain't broke" mentality, importing a sizeable chunk of the Broadway cast and crew, Lane and Broderick included, and placing Broadway director Susan Stroman at the helm. The result is an over-the-top spectacle, heavy on conventional Broadway choreography and spruced up with ambitious camera angles and outdoor dance sequences of grannies in a kickline.

The film kicks off with Max Bialystock (Lane) in a quagmire: His latest production, "Funny Boy," a musical version of "Hamlet," tanks on opening night. Enter Leo Bloom (Broderick), who not only fulfills his accounting duties by fixing Bialystock's finances but also hatches a scheme to get rich quick by selling investors on the worst play of all time. "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Adolf and Eva in Berchesgarten" goes on to do just the reverse. It titillates theatergoers, making bandits out of both Bloom and Bialystock.

Hollywood may have wrongfully bet that marquee stars Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell would simultaneously blend and boost the film as Ulla the Swedish secretary and Franz Liebkind, the Hitler-loving playwright. Thurman shimmies her way into two big dance numbers but barely leaves an impression, while Ferrell falls flat with nearly all his jokes, lacking the comedic timing and precision that Lane and Broderick so obviously perfected on stage. Instead, Roger DeBris (Gary Beach) and his common-law assistant, Carmen Ghia (Roger Bart), deserve the tiaras for stealing the rose-tinted spotlight. Apart from Beach's notorious title number, "Springtime for Hitler," the unambiguously über-gay duo kick up their costume heels in the instant classic "Keep it Gay," complete with Village People characters and a conga line.

Such outlandish antics, however, don't stop with the musical numbers. Almost everything in this film, from Lane's hysterics to tap-dancing filing cabinets, is in your face: Extra lights! Flashier costumers! More makeup! And with all the direct eye contact the actors make with the camera, you may end up feeling as if this really is a stage performance, freshly executed just for you. It's probably better to see "The Producers" in a standing-room only movie theatre, where interludes and silences may be filled with audience laughter and clapping -- as opposed to awkward silences you'd experience if you dare wait for "The Producers" to come out on video. But why wait when you can conga down to the movie theater right now. After all, show-stopping Nazi numbers never go out of style.

-- Josh Sparber