Sam Panico This movie - and Xandau - are why the Razzies exist, awards that celebrate the worst in movies. It's the only movie that Nancy Walker - Rhoda's mom and the Bounty paper towel lady - ever directed. It's Bruce Jenner's film debut. And I don't care what anyone says, I love it in spite of everything bad you can say about it.You can see why the movie happened. Producer Allan Carr was riding high off the success of Grease. Disco had finally hit the mainstream with Saturday Night Fever. And there was probably so much coke going around that everyone had a constant nasal drip. The time was ripe for what people had been clamoring for: the origin story of the Village People.Wait - what?The Village People - you probably know the words to YMCA - were created by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo. While in New York, Morali attended a costume ball at the Greenwich Village gay disco "Les Mouches." There, he was taken by all of the macho male stereotypes that he saw in the room and thought - this could be a music act, with each member being a different gay fantasy. Soon, they were signed to Casablanca Records, where their songs "San Francisco (You Got Me)," "Macho Man" and "In the Navy" played in clubs all over the world.The truth is that the Village People were all one person at first: Victor Willis. Once the album became a hit, Morali and Belolo quickly put out an ad that said: "Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache." From that big success to the time this movie was ready to come out, disco was just about dead, a fact that Carr had foreseen, changing the title from the original Discoland-Where The Music Never Ends! So what's it really all about? Jack Morell (Steve Guttenberg, Police Academy) - named for Jacques Morali, of course - wants to be a composer. But for now, he's DJing at Saddle Tramps, a disco. His roommate, Samanta Simpson (Valerie Perrine, Superman) is a newly retired supermodel. He writes her a song and everyone loves it, so she uses all of her connections to get him a deal. Her ex-boyfriend Steve Waits of Marrakech Records - get it, Casablanca Records? - wants her back, so he agrees to listen to a demo.However, Jack's vocals pretty much suck. So she recruits all of her fabulous friends, like waiter Felipe Rose - the Indian! And model David "Scar" Hodo - the Construction Worker! Randy Jones needs dinner, so he joins up as the Cowboy! We almost have formed Voltron...I mean, the Village People!We're treated to a solo song by David the Construction Worker called "I Love You to Death" where he fantasizes about all of the women who will be chasing him once he's popular. When this scene played in San Francisco, supposedly movie screens were decimated with eggs.Meanwhile, Samantha's former agent (Tammy Grimes, who is one of the commercial stars in The Stuff) wants her back in the modeling business and orders her secretary Lulu to make it happen. Somehow, Ron White (Jenner), a tax lawyer, gets mugged on his way to delivering a cake to Sam's sister, but then Lulu gives Jack drugs, then Ray Simpson - the Cop! - shows up and the four sing the song "Magic Night." It's all too much for Ron, who runs away.The next day, Ron and Sam get back together and hook up. Now that he has a reason to help, he offers his office for further auditions, where we meet Glenn Hughes - the Leatherman! - and Alex Briley - the G.I.! - who finally form the full version of the group. Blink and you'll miss W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless trying out! Finally, Ron's boss Richard says (Russell Nype, who is also in The Stuff) that their company shouldn't have anything to do with the group, so Ron quits the firm.The band then goes to the YMCA to rehearse, which leads to a musical number for the song of the same name. If you're looking to see plenty of naked men in a PG movie, well, here you go! I won't judge! Marrakech offers too little money for their contract, so the gang decides to throw a party to raise some funds.Seriously: this is the most raw dong I have ever seen in a non-porno movie.Samantha agrees to model again for a milk commercial, as long as the Village People can be there, too. The TV spot - with six small boys dressed as the band - starts with Samantha pouring them milk and turning into the song "Milkshake." Of course, the milk company balks at this. I've been in advertising for some time. I can only imagine the meeting where they showed this video to them and the blank stares turning into faces filled with pure rage.Norma White (Barbara Rush, It Came From Outer Space) decides to help and invites the guys to be part of her fundraiser. Sam lures Steve to the show by suggesting they can canoodle, so Ron dumps her. Meanwhile, on Steve's jet, Jack and his mother Helen (June Havoc, sister of Gypsy Rose Lee!) win the record company owner over and the Village People are signed!Everything works out just fine. Ron and Sam get back together. He gets his old job offered back. And following a song by Morali's other band The Richie Family, the Village People finally unite for "Can't Stop the Music."If only reality had been so kind. After all, the infamous Disco Demolition Night in Chicago, the evening most people claim was the death knell for disco in the United States, happened two weeks into filming.Even with a TV special - Allan Carr's Magic Night - featuring Hugh Hefner and Cher, along with a new Village People song Ready for the 80's! that was cut from the film, it was to prime America for a movie that by the time it was filmed no one really wanted to see.Oh man, the lyrics to that song:I'm ready for the eighties things look positive I'm ready and I've got a lot of love to give There's hope in every heart and love on ev'ey face The eighties promise everything is just gonna be greatBut hey - Baskin Robbins had a flavor made for the film. Can't Stop the Nuts was offered for the whole summer of 1980. Think I made this up? Nope. I have evidence.It's also one of the first appearances of Ray Simpson as the Policeman. The previously mentioned Victor Willis, the original lead singer, quit the group during pre-production. Turns out he wanted to let everyone know he was the straightman of the group and had insisted that his wife, the soon to be divorced and renamed Phylicia Rashad, be written into the film as his girlfriend. Her role in the film ended up being played by Sammy Davis Jr.'s wife Altovise Davis.Even crazier was that filming in New York was constantly delayed by protestors who were upset about the film Cruising. Many of them thought that this film was that film, so they protested against the wrong movie!The film failed. Disco died. But why are we talking about this all thirty-some years later? Simple: disco never really went away. And neither did the Village People. Victor Willis is even back in the group, after years of fighting. Sure, there are two different Village People bands touring. But people love them. They're a part of our culture, even if this movie is pretty much forgotten (outside of Australia, where it's a New Year's Eve tradition).I want to inform you for some reason this movie is 2 hours and 3 minutes long. I have no idea why it has to be so long. Plan your evening accordingly.

Allexander Lyons Take a flash-in-the-pan disco act, an unknown Steve Gutenberg on amphetamines, and Rhoda's mom in the director's chair and what do you get? A recipe for disaster that everyone saw coming except Allan Carr."Can't Stop the Music" is another one of those can't-miss ideas that failed horribly and from the cheap and corny opening credits, it's easy to see why.Most of the acting is horrible; the standouts being Steve Gutenberg, Caitlyn Jenner (as Bruce), Marilyn Sokol, and Felipe Rose (the VP's Indian), but for entirely different reasons. Forgotten camp icons Tammy Grimes, Barbara Rush, and June Havoc dress and act so silly that you could recast them with drag queens and nobody would notice. Valerie Perrine, the female lead, gets lost in the shuffle.Gutenberg's performance is morbidly fascinating, especially when compared with his most famous roles. He plays Village People founder Jacques Morali (Americanized to "Jack Morell" here) as a hyperactive flake with delusions of grandeur who can't hold a job or sit still for five seconds yet is inexplicably allowed to stay rent-free with fashion model gal pal Samantha (Perrine).Jenner and Rose give hopelessly wooden performances. While Rose seems game, his delivery is flat, his expression rarely changes, and every ten minutes or so he gives this badly dubbed Indian call that's like nails on a chalkboard. Jenner appropriately plays stuffed shirt tax lawyer Ron White and looks visibly uncomfortable. The other Village People aren't much better, but Rose gets the most screen time so we get subjected to more of his "acting." Up next is Marilyn Sokol. While she isn't as bad, the script gives her lame entendres that even Mae West would find distasteful. Also someone should have advised her to wear a wig or change her hairstyle because she bears an uncanny resemblance to Tim Curry from "Rocky Horror." Every time she came on screen I expected her to break out into "Sweet Transvestite" when I wasn't cringing at her sleazy one-liners.The movie's biggest failure is lack of lasting conflict. Every obstacle seems to be resolved in less than two minutes usually by introducing a character who just happens to have the solution. Altovise Davis serves as a walking deus-ex-machina, bringing in two of the future Village People off the street and wandering in and out of scenes like a fever dream. Perrine finds the others on an ice cream run and she also conveniently dated a record exec. Ron White's mother announces out of nowhere she can give the VP their big break in San Francisco when said record executive rebuffs them. When money gets tight, Perrine signs on to do a commercial. The whole movie is like this, which makes its two-hour runtime seem like an eternity.The script is also packed with failed humor. The movie thinks, among other things, that getting your finger stuck in a rotary dial, dropping a contact lens into a pan of lasagna, and dropping said scalding hot lasagna in someone's lap is funny. It also throws in a pointless "humor" scene where Grimes and a random woman attack each other with a loaf of bread just so the director can have a cameo.For a movie supposedly dealing with the music business, it knows surprisingly little about it. Jack can easily compose fully-produced demos with a complete string section despite using a keyboard and headphones. He also thinks DJing an original song one night will lead to instant stardom. He records the VP's first demo in his backyard. The VP perform choreography in full costume in a studio session while recording their parts at the same time! Even non-musical people are bound to notice it's so bad.Nancy Walker is a lousy director, and it's never more obvious than in the filming of the VP's concert finale. It starts with an all-female opening act that alternates from filming them fifty feet away to pointing the camera up the ladies' skirts. The VP get the same medium and wide shots mixed with closeups that cut out half the group. While Ray Simpson does his solo parts, the camera either focuses on the others or films him from behind. Is it any surprise she never directed again? Finally we come to the undeniable gay subtext. The movie tries to have it both ways, hiding it for middle America while pandering to VP's gay fanbase at the same time and the results are perplexing and often hilarious. Jack is weirdly asexual unlike his real-life homosexual counterpart and the VP are filmed flirting with female groupies and Sokol. Perrine flashes her boobs in the YMCA hot tub scene but given Walker's clumsy directing, it's hard to tell if this was deliberate.For the fanbase, Jenner wears a crop-top and Daisy Dukes for no reason at all in the lead up to the infamous YMCA sequence where young, muscular men are lovingly filmed swimming in speedos, wrestling, and baring their backsides, and occasional fronts, in the shower. The song "Liberation" is unapologetically a gay pride anthem. While comparatively tame, the fantasy song "I Love You to Death" also takes on a disturbing tone considering the upcoming AIDS epidemic.The music is fairly solid if a little formulaic. Morali reliably cranks out catchy disco tunes, though VP classics "Macho Man" and "In the Navy" are sadly absent. The only misses were the stuttering "Samantha" and "I Love You to Death" due to being uninspired, repetitive, and sung horribly.You have to wonder how anyone thought this would be a success. Disco was dead and even if it weren't, this movie is too shoddily made to be taken seriously. Nevertheless it makes an interesting time capsule for a bygone era and just how much you could push the boundaries of a PG film back in the day.

JasparLamarCrabb NOTE: I could not watch beyond the opening credits so this review only applies to that very painful few minutes.Steve Guttenberg quits his job at a record store after his fascist boss informs him that he'll be needed to work an extra shift. Guttenberg straps on a pair of roller skates and begins to weave in and out of Manhattan traffic. The titles roll along with him. Alternating urges to laugh and vomit swirl in the viewer's mind as the names Valerie Perrine, Paul Sand, Tammy Grimes, Leigh Taylor Young and others appear. A full-on assault to the gag reflex ensues once the words "Directed by Nancy Walker" appears. And why does this film "introduce" Bruce Jenner...he was an Olympic hero by this time! Ghastly. YES, you CAN stop the music...shut this nightmare off or walk out of whatever unlucky theater may run this! Better yet, roller skate away...FAST!

caa821 There really are some pieces of entertainment which are so bad that they are thoroughly enjoyable. This movie is an example of this to be placed in a time capsule to illustrate this for future generations.Look at the facts: it has the Village People portrayed as a group of straight young men, of diverse occupations, who are united as a musical group; Bruce Jenner is presented as an actor in a lead role; Bruce and the others work-out with the "People" at the gym (YMCA); Valerie Perrine is the lead female (her claim to fame is being the first woman to show her nipples on television, 30+ years ago); Steve Guttenberg and Paul Sand represent the most prominent actor and comic presence, respectively, the producers obtained for the film; and, there is the added presence of the long-in-tooth Tammy Grimes, the longer-in-tooth Barbara Rush, and the longest-in-tooth June Havoc to the cast. Call it campy, strange, weird, weak, laughable - or whatever other adjective(s) you can conjure - it is so bad it's thoroughly engrossing and entertaining. And there is something about watching the Village People act, cavort and sing, and listening to their music, which does nothing but add further to this fascination - and their acting makes Ed Wood seem like Olivier (but like all else here, so bad it's you-know-what).