HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEMINI turned out to be a happy surprise for me, the best widely lambasted movie I've seen in years. A wild farce about some earthy, low-income Philadephians, it's based on a hit play that premiered in 1977 and was still running almost a year after this modest movie adaptation was made! I remember the bad reviews at the time of it's release but had never seen the movie until recently watching it on youtube where it exists in a not very good print that has been sliced into ten episodes but this is likely to be the only place you will be able to see it, it was briefly released on videotape in the 1980's and probably played on cable premium channels a few times back then but I doubt it's been on TV since as much for its limited appeal as for Madeline Kahn's hilarious potty mouth.
20-year-old college student Francis Geminiani is not happy by a surprise visit from his quasi-girlfriend Judith and her brother Randy on the eve of his birthday mainly because he's begun to realize he's gay and actually attracted to the brother rather than the sister. The wealthy young siblings though are warmly welcomed by Francis' father and his middle-aged girlfriend (Rita Moreno playing an Italian Catholic!)and a neighbor, aging floozy Bunny Weinberger (Kahn) and her twentyish, plump, clumsy asthmatic son Herschel.
Top-billed Kahn is actually a secondary character (second-billed Moreno has an even smaller role) but she's delicious as a faded, crude mantrap who is just realizing her best days are now behind her. Her unsuccessful suicide attempt is a gem of a comic scene. The fairly obscure young leads (Robert Viharo, Sarah Holcomb, David Marshall Grant) are good but not unexpectedly unable to hold their own with a master comedienne like Kahn. On the other hand the even less known actor Timothy Jenkins as Bunny's infantile son whom she alternately babies and bullies actually steals the film in an endearing performance. Sadly he appears to never had another major part. Theirs is one of the best smother-mother and child duos created on film and there's even a lovely moment when they sing "Moon River" together off key as Kahn hammers at the piano.
The direction is not particularly good and the film resembles a TV-movie programmer from the era with it's camera shots but the script still has much of the punch of the play and the seven leads are all quite good. No small part of it's lack of success in 1980 was it's sympathetic attitude to homosexuality (though nothing remotely sexual ever happens) which was way ahead of the general population of the era. This might have been a hit a decade or so later but then we wouldn't have the wonderful performances of Kahn and Jenkins in that film.
20-year-old college student Francis Geminiani is not happy by a surprise visit from his quasi-girlfriend Judith and her brother Randy on the eve of his birthday mainly because he's begun to realize he's gay and actually attracted to the brother rather than the sister. The wealthy young siblings though are warmly welcomed by Francis' father and his middle-aged girlfriend (Rita Moreno playing an Italian Catholic!)and a neighbor, aging floozy Bunny Weinberger (Kahn) and her twentyish, plump, clumsy asthmatic son Herschel.
Top-billed Kahn is actually a secondary character (second-billed Moreno has an even smaller role) but she's delicious as a faded, crude mantrap who is just realizing her best days are now behind her. Her unsuccessful suicide attempt is a gem of a comic scene. The fairly obscure young leads (Robert Viharo, Sarah Holcomb, David Marshall Grant) are good but not unexpectedly unable to hold their own with a master comedienne like Kahn. On the other hand the even less known actor Timothy Jenkins as Bunny's infantile son whom she alternately babies and bullies actually steals the film in an endearing performance. Sadly he appears to never had another major part. Theirs is one of the best smother-mother and child duos created on film and there's even a lovely moment when they sing "Moon River" together off key as Kahn hammers at the piano.
The direction is not particularly good and the film resembles a TV-movie programmer from the era with it's camera shots but the script still has much of the punch of the play and the seven leads are all quite good. No small part of it's lack of success in 1980 was it's sympathetic attitude to homosexuality (though nothing remotely sexual ever happens) which was way ahead of the general population of the era. This might have been a hit a decade or so later but then we wouldn't have the wonderful performances of Kahn and Jenkins in that film.