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The Ritz
Despite a veteran in the director's chair and a winning cast, 1976's The Ritz, a silly and somewhat raunchy film version of a play by Terrance McNally, seems stuck in a cinematic purgatory now. It was risky material that 1970's audiences weren't really ready for and it feels terribly dated today.
At the request of his mob boss father, Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller) puts a contract out on his brother-in-law, Gaetono Proclo (Jack Weston). Obviously fearing for his life, Gaetano jumps in a cab and asks the driver to take him someplace where he is guaranteed not to be found by anyone. The cab driver takes him to the title establishment, which is really a gay bathhouse. Carmine learns where Gaetano is and sends a private detective with a very high voice (Treat Williams) to the bathhouse but he doesn't recognize Gaetano because he's wearing a hideous black wig. Among the supporting players involved in the story are a second rate singer named Googie Gomez (Rita Moreno) and a flamboyant queen named Chris (F. Murray Abraham).
The stage version of this opened on Broadway in January of 1975 and ran for almost a year, with Stiller, Weston, Moreno, and Abraham originating the roles they play in the movie. This film has been on my watchlist for decades because I love Rita Moreno and I remember her winning a Tony Award for the stage version. Imagine my surprise as I viewed this film and found her character to be peripheral to the primary action. There's a running joke throughout the film that everyone thinks she's a drag queen and the thick accent Moreno employs for the role seems to be in direct conflict with the kind of roles she fought tooth and nail not to play when she first came to Hollywood.
Of course, the material is dated because the gay bathhouse is a thing of the past. If you're really curious, google it, but the bathhouse depicted in this film is pretty cleaned up and hardly realistic, but I'm sure director Richard Lester was forced to clean up the show as much as possible to get it made. The film is rich with offensive gay and Italian stereotypes that would never make it to the screen today. And I don't if it was Lester or McNally, but the Michael Brick character with the high voice...did not find that funny, just kind of distracting.
Lester does display a definite affinity for slapstick and gets winning performances from the cast, most of whom came from the stage version. Jerry Stiller and Jack Weston are funny as hell and Kaye Ballard makes the most of her thankless role as Gaetano's wife. Moreno stopped the show with her take on "Everything's Coming Up Roses", but truthfully, it's future Oscar winner F Murray Abraham who walks off with this movie as the flashy fairy Chris. Fans of Amadeus might want to check this one out.
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Despite a veteran in the director's chair and a winning cast, 1976's The Ritz, a silly and somewhat raunchy film version of a play by Terrance McNally, seems stuck in a cinematic purgatory now. It was risky material that 1970's audiences weren't really ready for and it feels terribly dated today.
At the request of his mob boss father, Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller) puts a contract out on his brother-in-law, Gaetono Proclo (Jack Weston). Obviously fearing for his life, Gaetano jumps in a cab and asks the driver to take him someplace where he is guaranteed not to be found by anyone. The cab driver takes him to the title establishment, which is really a gay bathhouse. Carmine learns where Gaetano is and sends a private detective with a very high voice (Treat Williams) to the bathhouse but he doesn't recognize Gaetano because he's wearing a hideous black wig. Among the supporting players involved in the story are a second rate singer named Googie Gomez (Rita Moreno) and a flamboyant queen named Chris (F. Murray Abraham).
The stage version of this opened on Broadway in January of 1975 and ran for almost a year, with Stiller, Weston, Moreno, and Abraham originating the roles they play in the movie. This film has been on my watchlist for decades because I love Rita Moreno and I remember her winning a Tony Award for the stage version. Imagine my surprise as I viewed this film and found her character to be peripheral to the primary action. There's a running joke throughout the film that everyone thinks she's a drag queen and the thick accent Moreno employs for the role seems to be in direct conflict with the kind of roles she fought tooth and nail not to play when she first came to Hollywood.
Of course, the material is dated because the gay bathhouse is a thing of the past. If you're really curious, google it, but the bathhouse depicted in this film is pretty cleaned up and hardly realistic, but I'm sure director Richard Lester was forced to clean up the show as much as possible to get it made. The film is rich with offensive gay and Italian stereotypes that would never make it to the screen today. And I don't if it was Lester or McNally, but the Michael Brick character with the high voice...did not find that funny, just kind of distracting.
Lester does display a definite affinity for slapstick and gets winning performances from the cast, most of whom came from the stage version. Jerry Stiller and Jack Weston are funny as hell and Kaye Ballard makes the most of her thankless role as Gaetano's wife. Moreno stopped the show with her take on "Everything's Coming Up Roses", but truthfully, it's future Oscar winner F Murray Abraham who walks off with this movie as the flashy fairy Chris. Fans of Amadeus might want to check this one out.
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