Can’t Stop the Music (1980) Associated Film Distribution/Musical RT: 124 minutes Rated PG (brief nudity, adult themes, double entendres) Director: Nancy Walker Screenplay: Allan Carr and Bronte Woodard Music: Jacques Morali Cinematography: Bill Butler Release date: June 20, 1980 (US) Cast: The Village People, Valerie Perrine, Bruce Jenner, Steve Guttenberg, Paul Sand, Jack Weston, Tammy Grimes, June Havoc, Barbara Rush, Altovise Davis, Marilyn Sokol, Leigh Taylor-Young, Dick Patterson, The Ritchie Family. Box Office: $2M (US)
Rating: ****
Is Can’t Stop the Music one of the biggest musical flops of all time? Yes, but I love it anyway! For starters, it’s got one hell of a cast. It stars Olympic runner Bruce Jenner (now known as Caitlyn), sexy Valerie Perrine (Superman I & II), Steve Guttenberg of the Police Academy movies and 70s disco group The Village People whose fifteen minutes of fame were up by the time their movie hit theaters. PLUS, it’s directed by Nancy Walker aka Rosie the waitress from the Bounty commercials. What’s it all add up to? Like the poster says, it’s “The Movie Musical Event of the 80s”!
Okay, so Can’t Stop the Music didn’t actually turn out to be eventful. It was more of a non-event. This came as a surprise to producer Allan Carr who predicted it would be as big a hit as Grease. It turned out to be more of a fiasco like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. By the time it was released, disco was breathing its last breath. Can’t Stop the Music finished the job. Critics savaged it; audiences avoided it like the plague. By the time it finished its run (it was largely gone by Independence Day), it grossed only one-tenth of its $20M price tag. It was one of several flops (Raise the Titanic, Times Square and The Jazz Singer) that brought about the demise of AFD.
Can’t Stop the Music is a loose telling of the rise of The Village People. They’re formed by Jack Morell (Guttenberg) who quits his job at a record store with the exclamation “My time is NOW!” This leads into one of the goofiest opening sequences ever captured on film. We get to see Guttenberg roller boogie through New York City while “The Sound of the City” plays on the soundtrack. It’s truly a sight to behold.
Now unemployed, Jack convinces his platonic roommate, recently retired supermodel Sam (Perrine), to ask her ex, music executive Steve Waits (Sand, The Hot Rock), to listen to a demo of his song. He likes the song, but not the singing. No matter, Jack comes up with the idea of forming a supergroup comprised of some very interesting types, all from Greenwich Village (hence the name Village People). Some of you younger readers probably have no idea who or what I’m talking about, so let me run it down for you. The group consists of men dressed in different costumes. There’s a Native American (Felipe Rose), construction worker (David Hodo), a cowboy (Randy Jones), a cop (Ray Simpson), a leatherman (Glenn Hughes) and a G.I. (Alex Briley). They had a few hits in their brief brush with fame- “Macho Man”, In the Navy” and their most popular song “Y.M.C.A.”
Somewhere along the way, straight-laced tax lawyer Ron White (Jenner) gets pulled into their story. He’s initially freaked out by all the weird people, but comes around when he realizes he’s attracted to Sam whose former boss Sydney Channing (Grimes, Somebody Killed Her Husband) and her assistant Lulu (Sokol, Foul Play) also play roles in the group’s meteoric rise to success. Jack’s mother Helen (Havoc, Brewster’s Millions) is also on hand to offer up motherly interference and Jewish food. It’s an eclectic bunch, but what else would you expect in Greenwich Village?
Can’t Stop the Music is a bad movie, no question about it. BUT, it’s one of those great laughably bad movies that you watch with friends while making wise cracks the whole time. It is the very definition of campy. There’s a reason it’s popular with the LGBTQ+ community. The acting is all over the place yet it never goes anywhere close to good. Watching it, you’ll understand completely why Jenner didn’t become a movie star. He might have a few gold medals, but he will never have a gold statuette. Perrine looks stunning as always. Guttenberg is his usual goofy self. The Village People essentially play themselves, just not very well. It’s a good thing they can sing. As for the rest of the cast, they’re just there for the party.
Can’t Stop the Music, as you might expect, contains quite a bit of dopey (and sometimes suggestive) dialogue. One of my favorite lines is when Jack says to Sam, “Anyone who could swallow two Snowballs and a Ding Dong shouldn’t have any trouble with pride.” Now I wonder what he really meant by that? And what about this howler from Lulu: “Housework is like bad sex. Everytime I do it, I swear I will never do it again. Until the next time company comes.” And let’s not forget this prescient comment from part-time philosopher Sam: “The 70s are dead and gone. The 80s are going to be something wonderfully new and different and so am I.” We have writers Allan Carr and Bronte Woodard to thank for these lines and many more.
The musical numbers are wonderfully tacky and oddly catchy. Besides Guttenberg’s display of his roller boogie skills, you get the guys singing “Magic Night” at a backyard party at Sam’s. By the end, everybody is dancing and boogieing in a circle. The construction worker daydreams about being a future star while singing “I Love You to Death”. The group makes a tacky commercial for milk, dancing and singing to “Do the Milkshake”. None of those top the movie’s big number “Y.M.C.A.” If there was ever any doubt to the rumors about the Village People being gay, this number will erase each and every one. It features half-naked (and fully naked) young men engaging in manly activities like swimming, diving, gymnastics, exercising and showering. That last one gives a whole new meaning to the idea of “hanging out”. Perrine is the only female in this scene and she keeps her clothes on the entire time. Let’s not forget the big finale when the boys perform the title song before an enthusiastic crowd. Of course, the rest of the cast joins them on stage.
I didn’t see Can’t Stop the Music at the movies. I wanted to, but nobody would take me. I didn’t get to see it until it showed up on cable in summer 1987. I wasn’t impressed at the time. I rented it on video in ’94 and ran off a VHS copy for myself. That’s when it became one of my greatest guilty pleasures. It’s right up there with Xanadu, The Apple and Grease 2.
Okay, so Can’t Stop the Music is essentially a collection of clichés taken right from countless musicals from the 30s and 40s., I kept waiting for somebody to say “Let’s put on a show!”. I’m a real sucker for cheesy musicals from the 70s and 80s. I’m also a big disco fan. As such, this movie is a real treat on many levels. It’s like time warping back to a more innocent time when people bought music at record stores, roller boogied around town, went to discotheques and buddied around with strange people from the Village. I don’t care what anybody else says or thinks of me, I LOVE Can’t Stop the Music!
