Fictional tale of how the Village People got together. An annoying man (Steve Guttenberg) and his sexy roommate (Valerie Perrine) try to sell his music and get a group together. "Hilarious" complications ensure.
This is just a plain disaster. It fails almost completely. Nancy Walker may have seem a weird choice for the director but she had directed some TV shows and she was very comfortable with gay men (for instance, her and Montgomery Clift were the best of friends). The studio obviously wanted a director who would be comfortable with the gay subtext AND keep it PG! Well...she DID try!
It all starts out great with Guttenberg skating around NYC, a good song on the soundtrack and nice use of multi-screens. Then it quickly falls apart. The dialogue is truly atrocious (the actors deserve credit for saying their lines with a straight face); there are the horrendous 70s styles and fashions; dreadfully unfunny comedy; trying to sell the Village People as a straight group--come ON!; Felipe's bird call gets annoying after EIGHT renditions and totally unneeded romance between Perrine and Bruce Jenner! Also WAY too long (2 hours). However there ARE some good things about this.
The songs aren't bad and the production numbers are certainly elaborate; there's a nice sequence with Perrine "recruiting" 3 of the Village People; a beautiful rendition of "Danny Boy"; a truly hysterical song and dance number about MILK!!!!; and the YMCA number. It comes in too late (over an hour in) but it's just great--full of action, hunky men and frequent glimpses of full frontal male nudity! Also female (Perrine in the whirl pool).
The acting wavers: Guttenberg is WAY too hyper--I kept wanting to throw a few Valium in his mouth. Poor Valerie Perrine! She went from "Lenny" to THIS??? She's a wonderful actress and certainly beautiful and she REALLY tries--but the script is terrible. Bruce Jenner--don't get me started. Just one word comes to mind--hopeless. Tammy Grimes and June Havoc overact and underact and are just horrid. Worst of all is Marilyn Sokol as Lulu--she looks like Tim Curry from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and is truly astounding (I mean that in a bad way). You just watch her attempts at acting and comedy in utter disbelief.
The main problem with this movie is they tried to whitewash the Village People. They were a big GAY group--that's totally ignored here. There IS a big gay subtext though. However by the time this movie came out, the Village People were old news and disco was dead. And the script needed a serious rewrite. Some people think this so bad that it's good. Production numbers aside I was bored silly with an occasional stupid line or performance to pick me up. Sadly this is just a dull, bad movie. Still--I DO love the YMCA number:):)
This is just a plain disaster. It fails almost completely. Nancy Walker may have seem a weird choice for the director but she had directed some TV shows and she was very comfortable with gay men (for instance, her and Montgomery Clift were the best of friends). The studio obviously wanted a director who would be comfortable with the gay subtext AND keep it PG! Well...she DID try!
It all starts out great with Guttenberg skating around NYC, a good song on the soundtrack and nice use of multi-screens. Then it quickly falls apart. The dialogue is truly atrocious (the actors deserve credit for saying their lines with a straight face); there are the horrendous 70s styles and fashions; dreadfully unfunny comedy; trying to sell the Village People as a straight group--come ON!; Felipe's bird call gets annoying after EIGHT renditions and totally unneeded romance between Perrine and Bruce Jenner! Also WAY too long (2 hours). However there ARE some good things about this.
The songs aren't bad and the production numbers are certainly elaborate; there's a nice sequence with Perrine "recruiting" 3 of the Village People; a beautiful rendition of "Danny Boy"; a truly hysterical song and dance number about MILK!!!!; and the YMCA number. It comes in too late (over an hour in) but it's just great--full of action, hunky men and frequent glimpses of full frontal male nudity! Also female (Perrine in the whirl pool).
The acting wavers: Guttenberg is WAY too hyper--I kept wanting to throw a few Valium in his mouth. Poor Valerie Perrine! She went from "Lenny" to THIS??? She's a wonderful actress and certainly beautiful and she REALLY tries--but the script is terrible. Bruce Jenner--don't get me started. Just one word comes to mind--hopeless. Tammy Grimes and June Havoc overact and underact and are just horrid. Worst of all is Marilyn Sokol as Lulu--she looks like Tim Curry from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and is truly astounding (I mean that in a bad way). You just watch her attempts at acting and comedy in utter disbelief.
The main problem with this movie is they tried to whitewash the Village People. They were a big GAY group--that's totally ignored here. There IS a big gay subtext though. However by the time this movie came out, the Village People were old news and disco was dead. And the script needed a serious rewrite. Some people think this so bad that it's good. Production numbers aside I was bored silly with an occasional stupid line or performance to pick me up. Sadly this is just a dull, bad movie. Still--I DO love the YMCA number:):)