Sam Bauman: Live talent at Reno Eldorado showroom

The Eldorado continues to surprise with Reno’s only regular casino stage entertainment, in this case the musical comedy, “The Producers.” And if you buy a ticket at $25 you can get 50 percent off on your preshow dinner. Mel Brooks did the dialog and music for the Broadway hit.

Here Max the real producer is played by Bailey Burcham, Leo his accountant by Tyler Schrer and Ulla by Rachel Addington. All more than sparkle in their roles. It’s a pleasure to watch them at work.

The plot involves raising money for a new play, after discovering that the last one lost money but wound up with $10,000 leftover in budget. So they decide to stage the worst play they could find. It turns out to be “Springtime for Hitler,” but instead of flopping the audience mistakes it for satire and it’s a hit.

The Eldorado production is slightly shortened to keep it at two hours, but Mel Brooks’ humor comes through.

Truly a funny and high-keyed production. Maybe it is the beginning of a new era of seriously funny Broadway shows in Reno.

“Girl on the Train” worth your viewing

Senior movie fans who were disappointed by the sloppy Hollywood rip-off of Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai” called “The Magnificent Seven” (starring Denzel Washington) can revive movie hopes with “The Girl on the Train,” a taut, complex film directed by Taylor Tate with enough tension to keep seniors and other viewers entranced.

This is a psychological thriller in the best tradition adapted from Paula Hawkins’ best-seller novel. This commentary is long but makes up for lousy “Seven.”

Emily Blunt stars as a recent divorcée who takes the train into Manhattan and her imaginary job (she was fired because of an alcoholic blunder) daily, sipping booze from a designer bottle. En route at a stop she sees a blonde embracing a man (Luke Evans and Haley Bennett) on a patio rooftop in her old neighborhood. She also sees her former married home where her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) and wife Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) live with their baby daughter.

Taylor directs with a sure hand for tension, holding the violent scenes to the last 15 minutes.

Now that Rachel showed up around more often, especially leaving the home of the neighbor where his wife was at first missing, but now dead, Anna is in a worse condition. She would always look behind her whenever she went anywhere, she would listen to what is going on in the house, if any creak was out of place as if someone was here. This led into more and more fights with Tom.

Rachel, focusing so hard on the night when Meghan went missing, finally remembers what happened, she stumbled out of the train station, went to a bar, had more drinks and banged on Tom and Anna’s house. Tom begged to drive her home but she wouldn’t have it and left. Tom got in the car and tried to find her and in a passage under a bridge where he punched her several times, got into the car and then started to drive away as Meghan turned a corner and got into his car as well. Rachel realizes that Tom did something to Meghan and runs to Tom and Anna’s house because Anna is in danger.

As she approaches the house, she climbs over the fence and into the backyard and walks in the house through the back to see Anna. Anna does not freak out as Rachel starts to tell her everything she knows, Anna seems to believe it but is doubtful.

During this time Tom comes homes and finds them talking together, he starts to confess after Rachel confronts him and he admits that the had an affair with Meghan, but only because Anna was too busy with the baby.

When Meghan tells him that she is pregnant and it is his child he says he wants her to get rid of it. Meghan is angry and she starts yelling at him that he will have to pay. They were at some sort of park/ravine where they used to go to have sex in the car if a bedroom wasn’t available. He wants to shut her up so he grabs a rock and smashed her head in several times and buries her.

After his confession, Rachel tries to run but he catches her and hits her several times and tells Anna to go upstairs. He grabs Rachel and pins her against the kitchen counter. Since it was her kitchen, as she remembers where everything was and nothing was moved, she pushed him away grabs something and runs out in the backyard. As he runs after her, he knocks her down, she turns around and shoves the cork screw into his neck. Anna comes running and starts to talk gently to him but Rachel sees she is digging it in deeper. The cops come and the girls cover each other by saying it was self-defense After everything is over, Rachel leaves and heads somewhere north on a train.

A complex and chilly tale. But it holds together, unlike “The Magnificent Seven” where nothing is magnificent and sometimes there are only six.

“Art” theaters

Used to be back in the ’70s that most towns of sufficient size had “art” cinemas where foreign movies were shown. I was young and the “art” houses were my intro to the larger world of film. We now don’t have art cinema that ai know of except in New York City and probably San Francisco, certainly not in Carson City. So I wonder where foreign film fans go to catch up on the rest of the film world. Even the Stadium movie house in Carson City mostly shows reruns of Galaxy features.

Sam Bauman writes about senior affairs, among other things, for the Nevada Appeal.