As remakes go, this one seems more purposeful than some. We are not surprised, certainly, that the choreographer of the "Springtime for Hitler" number in The Producers -- Alan Johnson -- would jump at the chance to break into the director ranks with an encore of Ernst Lubitsch's nose-tweak of the Nazis. True, the topicality has diminished in the passage of time, but so has the tastelessness. (Discussions of "the Lubitsch touch" generally give a wide berth to To Be or Not to Be.) The farcical complications, taking off from the original, are well thought out, even if the individual jokes are not. And Mel Brooks, with that half-ecstatic, half-conniving expression on his face, a split embodied in that lopsided mouth, makes anything seem a bit funnier than it has a right to be. Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, and Jose Ferrer create some nice moments for themselves, too. (1983) — Duncan Shepherd
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