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Post by kims on Feb 25, 2023 0:09:38 GMT
I watched this on TCM last night. Jack Weston is pursued by brother in law Jerry Stiller who wants to kill him. Jack doesn't know he is hiding from bro-in-law at a gay bathhouse. Add'l cast members are F. Murray Abraham; Kay Ballard as Weston's wife; Rita Moreno as an untalented cabaret singer/actress; and Treat Williams as a straight guy whose voice didn't change as he grew up. It's a comedy, I'd classify as amusing rather than laugh out loud.
I have a question if anyone has seen this film. I didn't find it derogatory only occasionally stereotypically demeaning, but no more so than comedies with ditzy housewives, inept husbands, etc. Does this film rate in the same catagory as BIRTH OF A NATION?
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Post by cmovieviewer on Feb 25, 2023 1:03:24 GMT
I think your take on the show is accurate - it hasn’t risen to the level of requiring a warning from the TCM hosts in the introduction. The Wikipedia entry quotes Arthur Murphy of Variety saying that “The Ritz is either esoteric farce for the urban cosmopolite, or else one long tasteless and anachronistic Fiftyish 'gay' joke.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ritz_(film)I didn’t realize until this showing that the film is based on a play. It would be interesting to see how the play was staged as compared to the film. |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Feb 25, 2023 13:58:48 GMT
The playwright was Terence McNally, who went on to win four competitive Tony Awards and a special Tony for Lifetime Achievement in 2019. One was for Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), widely considered a landmark in "gay" theater, so I don't think it could be said that he didn't choose his words wisely. For anyone who was alive in 1975, when the play premiered, or 1976, when the movie was made, the F word wasn't at all unheard of in daily life, at least in the daily life of a gay person. I never took offence to McNally's use of it because I think he made it very clear that it was coming from a place of ignorance, so I don't think the political correctness gendarmes need to be called out just yet. I wasn't a baths kind of guy, though a lot of my friends were and could attest to the kind of hijinks depicted in the movie, probably even more so. It was constructed as a kind of French farce, which usually relied on fairly questionable plot points and a lot of "coincidence", so the results are usually mixed when contemporary writers try it and contemporary audiences don't always go for it, though "Noises Off" got to be quite a hit and is done a lot by community theaters.
As for the movie itself, it was kind of hit-or-miss, but a few of the hits were spectacular, such as Rita Moreno's reprisal of her Tony-winning role. And I personally laughed out loud when the "chubby chaser" character started launching a suitcase full of candy bars through the transom over Jack Weston's door. It was directed by Richard Lester, who had a big commercial success around the same time with The Three Musketeers and its sequel and who had directed both of the Beatles' movies back in the 60's. I wouldn't put it in the realm of Birth of a Nation, more in the realm of Some Like It Hot, though not nearly as successful as that comedy classic, of course. Actually, it's closest cinematic equivalent would probably be La Cage aux Folles (1978), the French farce which was also based on a play and also sought to titillate audiences with "insider" gay stuff.
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Post by kims on Feb 26, 2023 0:19:39 GMT
Thanks for input from both of you. As I said the premise was amusing and there seemed no intent to demean the characters and I laughed at the chubby chaser tossing the candy also.
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