Can't Stop the Music (1980)

I love this movie so much

Boring

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Take a flash-in-the-pan disco act, an unknown Steve Gutenberg on amphetamines, and Rhoda's mom in the director's chair and what do you get? A recipe for disaster that everyone saw coming except Allan Carr."Can't Stop the Music" is another one of those can't-miss ideas that failed horribly and from the cheap and corny opening credits, it's easy to see why.Most of the acting is horrible; the standouts being Steve Gutenberg, Caitlyn Jenner (as Bruce), Marilyn Sokol, and Felipe Rose (the VP's Indian), but for entirely different reasons. Forgotten camp icons Tammy Grimes, Barbara Rush, and June Havoc dress and act so silly that you could recast them with drag queens and nobody would notice. Valerie Perrine, the female lead, gets lost in the shuffle.Gutenberg's performance is morbidly fascinating, especially when compared with his most famous roles. He plays Village People founder Jacques Morali (Americanized to "Jack Morell" here) as a hyperactive flake with delusions of grandeur who can't hold a job or sit still for five seconds yet is inexplicably allowed to stay rent-free with fashion model gal pal Samantha (Perrine).Jenner and Rose give hopelessly wooden performances. While Rose seems game, his delivery is flat, his expression rarely changes, and every ten minutes or so he gives this badly dubbed Indian call that's like nails on a chalkboard. Jenner appropriately plays stuffed shirt tax lawyer Ron White and looks visibly uncomfortable. The other Village People aren't much better, but Rose gets the most screen time so we get subjected to more of his "acting." Up next is Marilyn Sokol. While she isn't as bad, the script gives her lame entendres that even Mae West would find distasteful. Also someone should have advised her to wear a wig or change her hairstyle because she bears an uncanny resemblance to Tim Curry from "Rocky Horror." Every time she came on screen I expected her to break out into "Sweet Transvestite" when I wasn't cringing at her sleazy one-liners.The movie's biggest failure is lack of lasting conflict. Every obstacle seems to be resolved in less than two minutes usually by introducing a character who just happens to have the solution. Altovise Davis serves as a walking deus-ex-machina, bringing in two of the future Village People off the street and wandering in and out of scenes like a fever dream. Perrine finds the others on an ice cream run and she also conveniently dated a record exec. Ron White's mother announces out of nowhere she can give the VP their big break in San Francisco when said record executive rebuffs them. When money gets tight, Perrine signs on to do a commercial. The whole movie is like this, which makes its two-hour runtime seem like an eternity.The script is also packed with failed humor. The movie thinks, among other things, that getting your finger stuck in a rotary dial, dropping a contact lens into a pan of lasagna, and dropping said scalding hot lasagna in someone's lap is funny. It also throws in a pointless "humor" scene where Grimes and a random woman attack each other with a loaf of bread just so the director can have a cameo.For a movie supposedly dealing with the music business, it knows surprisingly little about it. Jack can easily compose fully-produced demos with a complete string section despite using a keyboard and headphones. He also thinks DJing an original song one night will lead to instant stardom. He records the VP's first demo in his backyard. The VP perform choreography in full costume in a studio session while recording their parts at the same time! Even non-musical people are bound to notice it's so bad.Nancy Walker is a lousy director, and it's never more obvious than in the filming of the VP's concert finale. It starts with an all-female opening act that alternates from filming them fifty feet away to pointing the camera up the ladies' skirts. The VP get the same medium and wide shots mixed with closeups that cut out half the group. While Ray Simpson does his solo parts, the camera either focuses on the others or films him from behind. Is it any surprise she never directed again? Finally we come to the undeniable gay subtext. The movie tries to have it both ways, hiding it for middle America while pandering to VP's gay fanbase at the same time and the results are perplexing and often hilarious. Jack is weirdly asexual unlike his real-life homosexual counterpart and the VP are filmed flirting with female groupies and Sokol. Perrine flashes her boobs in the YMCA hot tub scene but given Walker's clumsy directing, it's hard to tell if this was deliberate.For the fanbase, Jenner wears a crop-top and Daisy Dukes for no reason at all in the lead up to the infamous YMCA sequence where young, muscular men are lovingly filmed swimming in speedos, wrestling, and baring their backsides, and occasional fronts, in the shower. The song "Liberation" is unapologetically a gay pride anthem. While comparatively tame, the fantasy song "I Love You to Death" also takes on a disturbing tone considering the upcoming AIDS epidemic.The music is fairly solid if a little formulaic. Morali reliably cranks out catchy disco tunes, though VP classics "Macho Man" and "In the Navy" are sadly absent. The only misses were the stuttering "Samantha" and "I Love You to Death" due to being uninspired, repetitive, and sung horribly.You have to wonder how anyone thought this would be a success. Disco was dead and even if it weren't, this movie is too shoddily made to be taken seriously. Nevertheless it makes an interesting time capsule for a bygone era and just how much you could push the boundaries of a PG film back in the day.

I really don't like this film, because it didn't do the musical group, Village People, any justice. The movie delivers an unbalance, vague resemblance pseudo-story of the Village People's formation, rather than their actual story. I can't blame them, too much on it, since the real-life band creator, Jacques Morali & lead singer, Victor Willis weren't willing to pitch in, with this film production. I don't blame them, after all, the production for this film, was full of reports of cast members getting injury, tension between actors and the director, and last, but not least, complicated film locations, due to adjacent protests by gay activists over the 1980's film Cruising. There was no way, Morali and Willis was going to do this film. So, it makes kinda sense that they had to do a lot of rewrites; but why, did they, went way overboard on the certain things. A good example is the use of nudity. This really shock me, because the movie was supposed to be rated PG. So, why is there scenes of male & female full-frontal nudity!? Who bright idea was to rate, this movie PG? I guess, they thought, the film was a cartoon, due to the over the top cartoony humor, the film has. They really went overboard with this. Honestly, what does filler scenes like an old granny mugger or a woman stuck in a phone booth, has to do with the Village People!? Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that the movie directed by Nancy Walker tries to funny, but most of the jokes really fall flat, because how stupid & childish, they were. Honestly, if their music wasn't there, this movie would be nearly unwatchable. It's their disco and dance music that make this movie, somewhat entertaining. Sadly, some of their instant classics are somewhat missing. Two of the band's three biggest hits: "In the Navy" and "Macho Man" did not appear in the film. I was really disappointed, by that. At least, the band, biggest hit, 'Y.M.C.A" was feature. Still, I could had done, without any of the other mediocre minor hits songs like 'Milkshake', 'Magic Night' and 'Can't Stop the Music'. Their song, 'Liberation" was a great tune, but really feels, out of place, without the pacing of the film. I really didn't like, the film, use of other artist songs, such as "New York - The Sound of the City" & 'Samantha" by David London. Nor did, I like that the movie is giving free-advertisement for Jacques Morali's other band, the Ritchie Family, by featuring their songs, "Sophistication" & "Give Me a Break". Surprising, for a movie that features the Village People, it doesn't show much of them at all. Instead, the movie focus more on how the group was made by a struggling composer, Jack Morrel AKA Jacques Morali (Steve Guttenberg), with his friend, former supermodel Samantha Simpson (Valerie Perrine) & her on & off, boyfriend, Ron White (Bruce Jenner). These three have more screen time, than any member of the band. I get that, the movie didn't want the Village People try to act, too much, so they wouldn't make complete fools of themselves, but gees, Valerie Perrine, Steve Guttenberg and expressively, Bruce Jenner, are not great actors. They all, pretty bad! Not only that, their characters are written, horrible. Steve Guttenberg's character comes across as a smug businessman. Valerie Perrine's character is just sex bait. Last is Olympian Gold Medalist, Bruce Jenner's character, who comes across as a minor character that shouldn't even be there. He rarely does anything, besides being the victim to a bunch of awkward slapstick gags and wince about it. 124 minutes is wasted on these characters, and by the end of the film, you still, don't know, much about the Village People, since coming in. The movie's pacing is also overwhelming. Lots of long takes, and general emptiness makes it a hard watch. Most of the musical numbers didn't look fabulous and crisp, due to the picture quality in the prints that the early 1980s had. Lots of key scenes look way too discolored & grainy. Another problem is the movie was film, without thinking of using any widescreen aspect ratio. There is a lot of bad framing, throughout the film. With a budget of around $20 million, you would think the picture quality would be, better, but half of the budget was spent on a lavish world-wide dinner parties and a Baskin Robbins promotion, during the biggest Disco backlash in history. Really bad judgment call right there. So, it was no surprised that, Can't Stop the Music, the most expensive musical at the time, bomb at the box office. It became so notorious bad that the Razzies was created, just for it, to win Worst Picture of that year. Even members of the Village People, Policeman (Ray Simpson), Construction Worker (David Hodo), Indian (Felipe Rose), Cowboy (Randy Jones), Leatherman (the late Glenn Hughes), and the soldier (Alex Briley), have stated in interviews that they dislike this movie, because, how much they were wasted. Also, the fact that the movie has them, playing heterosexuals fantasy roles, despite their influence in gay male subculture. The only true heterosexuals members, was biker, Glenn Hughes and replacement lead singer, Ray Simpson who took over for Victor Willis, as the Cop gimmick. Nonetheless, there is still a lot of gay imagery here to create a gay cult following and it did. As much, as I kinda like Disco and the Village People; Overall: I really can't defend this movie. Thank goodness, this movie musical got stopped before it made a sequel! It was just plain awful.

oh it's a magic night! there's magic in the music! there certainly is. wherever there is music there is always magic. you can't stop the music. just try. somewhere or another some new form or style will come from somewhere.time to face it folks. bad movie or good movie, most people really love 'Can't Stop The Music'. i mean it's just so "GAY-tastic" you've got to smile. everyone i've ever known who has seen this movie, always manages a smile or a chuckle when i bring it up. i can't stop smiling and laughing even when i just think about this flick.i did think a lot of this was pretty bad cinema, writing, acting, and oh those disco numbers like 'Milkshake' and 'I Love you to Death'. the whole movie and most of the songs are full of one cliché after another. the result, however, is never boring and always hilarious to the extreme. i even like two of the songs, 'Magic Night' and the title song. i think those two are really quite good. although i must admit the repetitive dance number 'I Love You To Death', was not only bizarre, it made me want to plug my ears and start screaming. also the 'YMCA' music number will turn anybody "gay" just by association.does anyone really believe the geriatric comedian Nancy Walker really directed this? i'm sure Alan Carr is the real culprit behind a lot of this. when i was young i saw the making of this movie on a select movie channel, and Walker just sat in a director's chair looking kind of befuddled. i'm sure she was just a friend he gave a paycheck to. nice of him though.it is amazing to note how unscathed Valerie Perrine comes out of this. she's a great actress and a real cutie, so you never tire or form a negative opinion of her through out this movie. can't say the same about Bruce Jenner and Steve Guttenberg. Guttenberg is cloying and annoying (that rhymed), and Bruce Jenner sashaying around in a pair of sassy short shorts, is well, kind of gay and more than a little embarrassing since Jenner is a straight actor. i'm sure he spent years after making this movie telling people "I AM NOT GAY".sometimes it seems that today's younger audience has no sense of humor about bad movies. mostly the people who can laugh and have fun during a bad film seem to be largely 'baby boomer' types. younger people just get so serious about their entertainment.but good movie or bad movie, who knows? we all seem to love it for some weird reason. just keep smiling, laughing, and never stop the music. who knows, maybe they will play 'I Love You To Death' at our funerals.

One has to admit objectively that if you ignore the highly fictionalized plot, the script and the acting, there's a lot of fun to be had in 'CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC. The supposed story of hit disco group The Village people (blatantly, satirically "Hollywood cleaned up") was laughed off the screen when it first came out for picturing one of the most obviously successful (and successfully obvious) gay singing groups as having been brought together by their (literal) girlfriends.Yeah, right....and yet, there is all that music. It's actually pretty darned good in a disco ball meets Busby Berkley fashion.Producer Alan Carr, who effectively captured the cartoon style of the Broadway hit GREASE in a smash cartoon of a movie, gave Broadway, movie and TV comedienne Nancy Walker a chance to direct her first big budget Hollywood film in a day (not yet passed) when the number of major women directors could be counted on one hand - with several fingers left over. Sadly, the commercial fate of the film Carr wanted set the cause of women directors back another decade or two. The producer wanted a cartoon - it had worked with GREASE - and Walker gave him one - presumably trying to satirize the old movie bios (remember the factually ludicrous but musically satisfying NIGHT AND DAY or 'TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY?). They ignored the well known and reported facts of The Village People and expected their music to carry the film. Had they caught the peak of the group's vogue it might have worked, but the wave had already crested and the Post-Stonewall audience was ready to demand TRUTH, not obviously silly Hollywood myth.The only real ongoing sin of CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC is the continuing involvement of its lead, the presumably straight but 8trying to be "enlightened" Steve Guttenberg, in gay associated projects which he has managed to "clean up" with an almost CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC-like, arguably homophobic, distortion. Note how when the play P.S. YOUR CAT IS DEAD (a flawed but enjoyable novel and play by CHORUS LINE writer James Kirkwood about a supposedly straight actor who finds a gay burglar in his apartment on New year's Eve and ultimately reaches an improbable rapprochement with him) that had a modest Broadway run and a successful life in stock was finally filmed in 2002 with Guttenberg in the lead and directing, he managed to leach almost every visage of legitimate gay "threat" or "edge" out of the actual staging! It became another dishonest cartoon and lost most of the target audience which was eagerly anticipating it.In both CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC and P.S...., it just doesn't work when straight or closeted film makers try to play with "trendy" gay themes but can't bring themselves to do so honestly. It's also a recipe for commercial disaster on projects that could have offered so much honest entertainment for modern open audiences.What a pity. There's still a LOT of fun to be had here, but you do have to ignore a lot to get to it.