Some classic movies came out in 1980: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, and Raging Bull among them. Then there was a little movie starring Caitlyn Jenner (then known as Bruce Jenner), Valerie Perrine, Steve Guttenberg, and the disco group the Village People which is definitely not a classic: in fact, along with another film from 1980, Xanadu, Can’t Stop the Music served as the inspiration for the Golden Raspberry Awards. It’s not great but is sometimes endearingly silly and serves as a reminder that, as they say in the financial trade, past success is no guarantee of future performance.
Things don’t start well in an opening sequence that has Jack Morell (Guttenberg) quitting his day job and roller skating to his new gig as a DJ at a local disco, while the credits play in a barely legible sparkle font over some incredibly silly split screen techniques that make you wonder what fresh hell you’ve wandered into. Jack’s improbable roommate Sam (Perrine), a retired model, tries to get him a record deal, and in the process recruits the singers who become The Village People, including Felipe Rose (the “Indian”), David Hodo (the construction worker), Randy Jones (the cowboy), Ray Simpson (the policeman), Glen M. Hughes (the leatherman), and Alex Briley (the G.I.).
Most of the problems with Can’t Stop the Music come down to the screenplay. Screenwriter Alan Carr thought he and Bronté Woodward were writing a good film—he claimed it would be “Singing in the Rain for the disco crowd”—but boy did they miss the mark. Carr and Woodward probably seemed like a safe bet for the topic, since they previously co-wrote the successful screen version of Grease, but adapting something that exists is different from writing something from scratch, as evidenced by the final season of Game of Thrones. This time around, Carr and Woodward produced a screenplay which is tedious, unfunny, and often insulting, even when viewed through a 1980s lens. Also, for a story built around a group whose members purposefully adopted the personas of gay stereotypes, it spends a lot of time with boring straight characters.
Carr and Woodward’s screenplay often feels like something produced by an overly self-important student aiming to be the voice of their generation. If they had been willing to lighten up and have more fun with the excesses of late 1970s and early 1980s culture, Can’t Stop the Music might have been a better (and would almost certainly have been a more enjoyable) film. As it stands, the film’s best moments are the production numbers, where it goes for over-the-top silly and sometimes gets there. It would also have benefitted by the inclusion of more of The Village People’s hit songs, particularly since it was meant to capitalize on their popularity.
The direction by Nancy Walker (a distinguished stage and television actress perhaps best known for playing Rhoda Morgenstern’s mother on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spinoff Rhoda) is not bad, but I doubt anyone could have made a success of this film given the screenplay she had to work with. At any rate, Can’t Stop the Music was Walker’s first and last film as a director, with its dire reception (it was both a critical and a box office bomb) bringing her directing career to a swift end.
You may be wondering how Caitlyn Jenner fits in to all this. Then famous as Bruce Jenner, gold medal winner in the decathlon at the 1976 Olympics, Jenner betrays positively no acting talent playing a lawyer from St. Louis (!) but wears a three-piece suit and mop-top haircut well. | Sarah Boslaugh
Can’t Stop the Music is distributed by Kino Lorber as a two-disc set: one Blu-ray and one 4K Ultra HD. Extras include two commentary tracks: one by film historian Lee Gambin and podcaster DJ Maynard, one by Jeffrey Schwarz and Bruce Vilanch; two interviews with Randy Jones (25 min. and 40 min.); and the theatrical trailer plus some TV spots for this film.
