Village People - Can't Stop the Music (Film)

This movie is triumphantly awful, physically painful to endure at times. It's just this bizarre mishmosh of misguided choices, poor judgment, committee thinking by people with very little filmmaking/scriptwriting knowhow, and a total lack of focus and directorial vision. The musical numbers are ambitious, though -- sometimes even great. I love the opening sequence (Guttenberg on roller skates, dancing through Times Square).

Actually, disco was already dead (or pushed way back down into the subculture it came from) by the time Can't Stop the Music came out in 1980. Given all the production problems, it's sort of amazing it got completed at all. I'm pretty sure the film was shelved for a while -- hence the release date.

Although it works out, cuz from what I can tell, Morali kinda looked like Guttenberg!

On the right:

http://www.disco-disco.com/images/henri-jacques.jpg

donate my 10 points to red cross

What's been said about it above. Compared to the other hyperindulgent end-of-era disaster Xanadu -- also entertainingly lame but somehow even more of a stultifying 'what the FLYING fuck' experience that makes you want to hate people (and why am I not surprised Joel 'I produced The Matrix so I'm deep now' Silver produced that one) -- Can't Stop the Music is somehow ridiculously sweet in its vapid stupidities. It has the choice line "Anyone who can swallow two snowballs and a Ding Dong shouldn't have a problem with pride!" -- it is genius beyond measure. And I must and shall get it on DVD.

I wish they'd done a Ritchie Family movie.

It is The Apple. Oh yes.

http://www.disco-funk.co.uk/j/Covers/lorrain2.jpg

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre200/e276/e27678jrk9v.jpg

http://www.disco-funk.co.uk/s/Covers/saturday.jpg

I'd do a whole thing about the unbearable poignance of this scene [having taken on a whole leather persona to escape the dreariness/unimportance of his life, no doubt growing up in some intolerant farmtown where he had to stay in the closet, now he has to face stress of a whole different kind, and is now learning that personae are useless to dispel fear] but it'd sound dumm.

plus the fact it was directed by Nancy Walker always gives me the giggles

I have no idea what "plotz" means but I've been seeing a lot of Krusty The Klown on old Simpsons episodes. forgive me.

I'm Appalled no-one thought of this one:
http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=A66209"

"LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF THE CIT-EEEEEEEEH!"

"I LOVE YOU TO DEATH.. I LOVE YOU TO DEATH... I LOVE YOU TO DEATH.. OH BAY-BEEEEEEEEEEEEH"

"MAGIC NIGHT!"

oh I could go on.

My father, a master anecdotalist, used to entertain my brother and me when we were kids with his stories of catering movies as a teenager and young man in the late 70s and early 80s. "Can't Stop the Music" was one of those movies and some of the trivia and stories were repeated to me tonight. I'll post a few of them for your reading pleasure.

French producer Jacques Morali faced a security threat and eventually needed a personal bodyguard because he wouldn't stop, in broken English, propositioning crew members for sex. He apparently approached my father's catering truck and, after not answering the routine "chicken or steak" question, made an obscene sexual request which began "[french accent] well, actually, I would like...", which prompted his personal assistant to run over shouting "No, no, no!" and trying to defuse the situation before my dad and his-coworker could further understand what he was trying to say. The personal bodyguard was needed after Morali propositioned a teamster btw.

People would occasionally asks the question to the Village People of "so are you guys all gay?" which the VP would always respond with "Oh, no -- Felipe (the Indian) likes girls."

Though the wrap-party was at MGM and was one of those characteristically great Allan Carr parties, there was a San Fran concert scene that was notorious among the crew for its debauchery. My father caught the flu and didn't attend, but, apparently, it was something just short of a coke-fueled orgy. Keep in mind this is San Francisco in the summer of 1979 and they are filming the "YMCA scene" for the Allan Carr-produced 'Village People movie.'

During the YMCA scene, shot at the Glendale YMCA, Allan Carr had all the bodybuilders from the scene line up so he could pick his favorites out for later, undisclosed, purposes. "Things like that went on during the whole production..."

All the movies my dad worked were from the late 70s and early 80s they were almost all bombs. My favorite "It was the 1970s/early 80s, and I was young..." story involves a party that included Cheech and Chong, OJ and Nicole, and a member of the Eagles jamming with a midget on drums late into the night.

Guh...what...you are making your dad write a book or something, I trust.

The written word cannot do justice to my dad. When he's telling the story himself it is beyond great. You are listening to a combination of the Great American Tale and Homer Simpson recalling his lost youth.

What's funny is that my mom actually has my dad beat in attending great or memorable parties (and my mom may have attended a more epoch-defining 1970s homosexual party: a gay friend took her to the release party of Donna Summer's first album), but mom doesn't articulate the story or the scene very well, for the Donna Summer party she just said "I'd never seen so many homosexual men in the same room before."

Meanwhile, my dad makes working on "Under The Rainbow (1981)" sound like the death knell of the 70s, or like the cinematic equivalent of being in the studio with Fleetwood Mac during the making of Tusk. "One time everybody got so high on cocaine that lunch break was never deemed over. People were too out of their minds to return to work and so production just called it a day," or "some of the teamsters on the call sheet didn't actually exist. They were just put on there so accounting could explain away the fact that production money was being spent on coke."

okay i both would love to see this movie, and own a copy of the poster:

http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1020/248570.1020.A.jpg

So I was watching the Tom Snyder Punk New Wave DVD set. I selected the PiL episode from June 1980, but elected to watch the entire episode, just for context.. Cuz it's great to see what kind of bizarre shit that's totally forgotten just pops up on these things.

And so Snyder's guest before Lydon and Levine is a small man who then gets introduced as Allan Karr who's peddling a little disco movie, and i nearly shitted myself. He kept on referring to how audiences LOVE fairy tales and vaudeville. He was really swell but really out of touch and uncomfortably trying to defuse something. You could sense he knew defeat was imminent.

I mean, just to be in the green room with John Lydon, Keith Levine, and Allan Carr.

okay i both would love to see this movie

It ran on HBO constantly when we first got cable in 1982 or so, so I have it all too burned into my brain. (See also: The Cannonball Run, Battle Beyond the Stars.)

and i LOVE those other two movies, ned, this picture is definitely for me

Hahah then by all means set up the triple bill.

http://i45.tinypic.com/n1dzit.jpg

The book Party Animals about Allan Carr is pretty over the top, in the best possible way.

Do the shake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyMOuIsDyXk

I love everything this movie chooses to be.

Can't director Nancy Walker at her Broadway best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sqFcwXjcC0

The Fabulous Allan Carr concentrates on Grease, Can't Stop the Music, and the Rob Lowe/Snow White Academy Awards broadcast, but he had a hand in other stuff I didn't know--getting Ann Margaret into Carnal Knowledge, the cannibalism Z-film Survive! (saw it a drive-in with my parents when it came out), promoting The Deer Hunter even. I honestly can't remember if I actually watched the Snow White debacle--I tuned out the Academy Awards for about a decade, and that one ('89 show) would have fallen just inside or outside that window. When Lowe and Snow White break into "Proud Mary" (described with perfect deadpan by Bruce Vilanch), wow. That leads to a pretty sad shunning of Carr for a few years, eventually righted with a successful Grease re-release.

The '70s sure were weird.

I see it's playing here June 18th -- I should definitely look into that!

Can't Stop the Music keeps coming up for me lately--first as I was binging on the 80s All Over podcast, then when a caller on Tom Scharpling's Best Show pitched it as "a movie directed by cocaine," and once again now. I've never seen it available through any legitimate channels; should I just go ahead locate it another way?

Valerie Perrine has a couple of interview clips in the documentary--think she may have Parkinson's.

The doc sounds promising too. Directed by the guy who did the Divine and Tab Hunter ones (both of which I liked). I'll keep an eye out for it.

Clemenza, per your description: surely La Cage Aux Folles (the Broadway musical version) is discussed in the film as well? (In Party Animals, the biography of Carr referred to upthread, that was the other main anchor of his life story, and credit to him for it.)

Yes, that too--the redemption story between Can't Stop the Music (plus a couple of subsequent bombs) and Snow White.

The opening chapter of Party Animals, talking about how Brett Ratner, of all people, ended up buying Carr's mansion after he died and how the place was decorated/set up when purchased is truly amazing. (As are the immediately subsequent chapters talking about the parties there in Carr's 70s heyday, including Nureyev being had (if you will) on the lanai.)

As for me, I do very much remember watching that Oscars ceremony live. That...was something.

Sounds like the book (which I didn't know about till I reopened this thread and saw your post) was the main source for the film; Brett Ratner turns up at the end, and the parties are discussed extensively.

Sounds about right! The book really is stellar -- bit of an odd structure, essentially begins in medias res, then backtracks some time later to his youth/upbringing, etc., but otherwise top notch.

Cant Stop The Music was one of my favorite movies when I was really little - Mum bought the soundtrack on vinyl & I listened to it all the time. I loved S-s-samantha, and the Milkshake song 😃

I watched it when it was on Amazon Prime a year or two ago...hooooooo boy. So much coke. SO much coke.

Finally watched this. Pretty bad, but no dumber than, say Summer Stock or some other such 50s equivalent. I liked a couple of the musical numbers--the supergay "YMCA" sequence, of course, and "Samantha." Perrine is charming, Jenner is godawful, and Guttenberg gives a performance so wired he's practically cocaine in human form.

I still want to see that Allan Carr doc.

ws Guttenberg in this movie tbh

Also, how could you not call out the "Milkshake" "commercial" as a highlight?!

The Village Babies creeped me out too much.

Milkshake commercial is classic!!

One random trivia bit I've heard repeatedly about this is that it plays on Australian TV every New Year's. Best disco movie of all is definitely Skatetown U.S.A.

Steve Guttenberg as a stand-in for Jacques Morali is the worst casting in the history of the world. Dude has no rhythm, not a musical bone in his body, utterly unconvincing as a DJ or a music producer. Plays the role 20% too hyperactive, from beginning to end.

But it wouldn't be a good movie anyway. Jokes and double entendres don't land. It's hard to hear them; sound is bad, delivery is bad. Extensive post-dubbing adds a weird unreality to the whole film. Why is Caitlyn Jenner here? Standing around looking bewildered for at least 40 minutes of the film.

I have not idea how they got that "YMCA" sequence in there while still keeping their PG rating. Well done, whoever did that, you know who you are.

perhaps you would reconsider your take if you imagine watching this as a 5 year old (ie me) :D

I'm no prude but should a five-year-old be watching this?

What I do regret is watching one particular sequence twice, because now I have

I love you to death
I love you to death... oh bayyybee!

as an earworm.

Cast your mind back to 1980 -parenting was VERY different

My first ever movie was the year before at FOUR years old; Best Little Whorehouse In Texas at the drive-in
Who can afford a babysitter? why get one? Who cares!

Xpost I love that song to this day lmao

True, it was a different parenting world. I saw my first "R" in 1979 which was Alien, though I was already 11.

The big overarching joke about Can't Stop the Music is that the film is uber-gay, gay to the last detail, yet the word gay is never mentioned. And I respect the cheekiness of that. But I can't recommend it, because it's a trainwreck. People put it in the same "bad musical" category as Xanadu, but come on, Xanadu does what it's trying to do way better.

Has it ever been explained how Nancy Walker came to direct this thing?

The one thing I read is that she was deemed to be gay-friendly as a person and thus kind of a potentially sympathetic director for the project.

Maybe this is better as a Taking Sides but I think Xanadu has a much better soundtrack (or main theme, at least)

Yes but counterpoint: Xanadu does not have a Milkshake song

For the world's longest commercial

When I explain Sex Over the Phone and the Milkshake song to young people they get immensely confused

The opening song slaps!

I'm just finding out how massive the Can't Stop the Music album was in Australia. Number One and certified Platinum! That is so crazy. Meanwhile it basically ended their career in America. Am also surprised that they made at least three albums after CSTM, although I have heard "Sex Over the Phone" because the video of it sometimes makes the social media rounds.

I had the soundtrack record as a kid & listened to it ALL the time

You were ready for the '80s.