Luckily, there s plenty of song-and-dance fun to fill this gap. But it would be better if there were both. And there s no real way to match the black-and-white film s hilarious dead-on parody of the classic horror movies of the 1930s. Those movies were about as far from a lavishly produced 21st-century Broadway musical as anything could be, although Brooks does often successfully capture the quality of old-horror-movie music in his underscoring.

Andrea Martin is often very funny as creepy housekeeper Frau Blucher (the Cloris Leachman role originally), and she has a great number whose title is taken from one of the big laugh lines in the movie: He Vas My Boyfriend.

Sutton Foster, who has actually starred in more Broadway hits than most of the other headliners here, has a less inherently funny part than Mullally or Martin she s the sexy lab assistant Inga, and though she gives it her best and has plenty of stage time, she s never as crazy-silly as the others. This problem also crops up with Roger Bart, who ends up playing straight man to the hellzapoppin wildness around him.

It s unfair but inevitable to compare him to Wilder (co-author of the film script as well as the star), who gave a classic screwball performance but Bart, here, too rarely shows the gift for spectacular silliness he displayed in The Producers .