"La Cage aux Folles" Only Wishes It Were This Gay

[the_gneech]

Courtesy of Netflix, I rented the 1956 film version of "Anything Goes" -- figuring that with a script by P.G. Wodehouse and music and lyrics by Cole Porter, it had to be pretty darn good.

Well, um, it wasn't. In fact, aside from one "this doesn't suck" number about 3/4 of the way through involving Donald O'Connor tap-dancing while kids threw playground balls at him (it worked better than it sounds), it was mostly noticeable for, well, being really gay. 0.o During the signature routine of "Anything Goes," Mitzi Gaynor is danced around by several guys in tight TIGHT pants and do a lot of butt-flaunting -- but that's positively tame compared to the wrist-bending and jazz-handsing Chippendales guys who accompany Zizi Jeanmaire during her character's introductory number. Most of the choreography in the film is just kinda weird -- people moving around more or less randomly in time to the music -- but when watching those two numbers particularly I kept expecting them to break into "The French Mistake".

The gayness of it all wouldn't be a problem particularly, except that in a comedy the laughs should come from a funny script, not from the ridiculousness of the boys in the chorus camping it up. However, my disappointment is mitigated somewhat by the discovery that this film version is basically a shadow of the original play, that (in the words of Wikipedia) "almost completely excised the rest of the characters in favor of a totally new plot." So, yeah. Thanks Paramount. Pfui. Even Bing Crosby makes clunkers sometimes.

Oh well ... the actual play gets revived from time to time, maybe I'll see it on the stage someday.

-The Gneech

EDIT: Well, YouTube has Mitzi Gaynor's routine. Saddle up, Spanky!

Comments

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

That's the plus of living in the northeast and eastern US and southern central Canada--almost every stage show will be produced at one point or another :)

*still holding out for Sunset Boulevard*

[russ-arulo.livejournal.com]

Wow, and I thought "Strangers on a Train" was gay...

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Though I have to admit, that after all this time, I thought they where singing about the French Mystique.

[kamau-d-lyon.livejournal.com]

Don't you just love the way we have to 'rework' everything these days. Classic film or Star Wars we just can't leave well enough alone.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well in this case, "these days" was 1956...

-The Gneech

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it is just me, but I didn't see all that much that struck me as gay in that. Of course, I also didn't see much that wasn't Mitzi strutting about either. She was rather distracting.... ;P

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

Trust me, you would notice what he's talking about if you saw the second number. Guys in tight shiny black tux pants, tight shiny tux jackets, with cuffs and collars and bowties, but no shirt, and waxed chests, moving like they did, holy cow!

[exatron.livejournal.com]

Was the director Roger De Bris or something?

[radbaron.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the Mel Brooks movie "Blazing Saddles" where the fist-fight breaks into the Hollywood Musical? Looked a lot like this, except with cowboys. And lots of Johnsons.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

See also "The French Mistake," mentioned above. :)

-TG