1980 Week: Can’t Stop the Music & Xanadu

          Since disco was already dying by the time these two spectacularly bad dance-themed movies were released, it’s not fair to say that either picture killed disco. Nonetheless, the sleazy Can’t Stop the Music and the wholesome Xanadu certainly inflicted wounds. Starring the Village People, Can’t Stop the Music is perplexing right from the first frame, because the opening-credits sequence features Steve Guttenberg roller-skating through New York City, in a split-screen effect, as he listens to the Village People on his personal radio and as the credits reveal the motley crew assembled for the movie. Beyond Guttenberg, the cast includes athlete Bruce Jenner and sexpot Valerie Perrine. Stranger still, the picture was directed by Nancy Walker, best known for playing greasy-spoon waitress “Rosie” in ’70s commercials for Bounty paper towels.

          Can’t Stop the Music purports to tell the story of the Village People’s formation, and like everything else related to the ridiculous vocal group behind “Macho Man” and “Y.M.C.A.,” Can’t Stop the Music avoids the elephant in the room—the fact that the Village People coyly repackaged homoerotica for mainstream consumption. Can’t Stop the Music is outrageously sexualized, featuring scenes in gyms and saunas and swimming pools—there’s even the occasional glimpse of a penis, despite the film’s PG rating. The five singers in the Village People give terrible acting performances, as does Jenner, and the whole movie is cut so fast that it feels like a hallucination. Weirdest of all, perhaps, is the unrelentingly upbeat tone—Can’t Stop the Music is like an old Garland-Rooney “let’s put on a show” picture, only set in a bathhouse.

          Xanadu is just as exuberant, and occasionally just as surreal, but it lacks the subversive quality of Can’t Stop the Music. Instead, Xanadu is an infantile phantasmagoria. However, I must confess to loving the movie’s soundtrack album, featuring songs by Electric Light Orchestra and the film’s leading lady, Olivia Newton-John. (True confession: Xanadu was the first LP I bought with my own money.) Michael Beck, a long way from The Warriors (1979), plays Sonny, an L.A. artist who paints billboard-sized versions of album covers. While roller-skating around Santa Monica one afternoon, Sonny meets the beguiling Kira (Newton-John), who turns out to be one of the Muses from Greek mythology. Kira provides magical inspiration to both Sonny and aging song-and-dance man Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) as the three contrive to build a roller-disco palace called Xanadu. That is, until Zeus decides Kira must return to Olympus.

          In the course of telling its silly story, Xanadu toggles between cinematic styles with great abandon. There’s an animated sequence, lots of special effects, endless roller-disco jams, and a bizarre mash-up number combining a WWII-style big band performance and a guitar-heavy throwdown by L.A. pop-punkers The Tubes. As with Can’t Stop the Music, the genuinely terrible Xanadu is best experienced with either abject disbelief or ironic amusement. The only unassailable aspect of the film is the leading lady’s appearance, because Newton-John was at the apex of her girl-next-door sexiness. Amazingly, Xanadu has enjoyed a long afterlife, even spawning a Broadway musical. Turns out you really can’t stop the music—no matter how hard you try.

          FYI, the collective awfulness of Can’t Stop the Music and Xanadu led to the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards, which honor cinema’s worst achievements.

Can’t Stop the Music: FREAKY

Xanadu: FREAKY

40 Carats (1973)

If Harold and Maude is the most interesting older woman/younger man picture released during the ’70s, then 40 Carats is quite possibly the least interesting. Originally produced as a stage play, the piece is painfully contrived and old-fashioned, its artificiality exacerbated by terrible casting. Liv Ullmann, so great in Ingmar Bergman’s chamber dramas and other serious-minded European films, flounders delivering cutesy rom-com banter. Her costar, Edward Albert, the would-be leading man whose career sputtered from dubious promise to an indifferent level of accomplishment throughout the early ’70s, plays fluffy scenes with too much intensity and heavy scenes without enough substance. Together, they achieve supreme mediocrity. The story begins in Greece, where vacationing New Yorker Ann (Ullmann) meets Peter (Albert), a young American roaming the Continent on a motorcycle. They enjoy an unexpected sexual tryst, and Ann withdraws the next morning, expecting never to see Peter again. Yet upon returning to New York, Ann discovers that by sheer coincidence, Peter has been fixed up for a date with her adult daughter (Deborah Raffin). Unfortunately, he still wants Ann. Meanwhile, a wealthy Texan (Billy Green Bush) is fixed up with Ann, but he secretly wants Ann’s daughter. The resulting slog of trite misunderstandings drags on for the better part of an hour. Eventually, the movie gets a smidgen of energy once Ann and Peter throw aside social conventions to pursue their relationship. For instance, a long scene in which Peter’s nasty father (Don Porter) tears apart his son’s romance has edge, so Ullmann finally gets to showcase dramatic chops. Alas, far too much of the movie comprises limp dialogue like this exchange between Ann and her charmingly irresponsible ex-husband, Billy (Gene Kelly). “You are a multi-carated blue-white diamond,” he coos. Then the phone rings, so Ann says, “That must be Van Cleef & Arpels.” 40 Carats tries mightily to entertain, and watching the filmmakers exert so much wasted effort is exhausting. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)

40 Carats: FUNKY

That’s Entertainment! (1974) & That’s Entertainment, Part II (1976)

          Made to commemorate Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 50th anniversary, That’s Entertainment! is a documentary in name only, since the picture comprises clips from old movies that are introduced—through new, scripted footage—by a group of movie actors closely associated with the MGM studio. Anyone looking for behind-the-scenes gossip or insight will be disappointed, but, as the film’s title suggests, providing information isn’t the point. Rather, That’s Entertainment! offers a massive array of show-stopping musical numbers, including such classic moments as Fred Astaire’s graceful dance duet with Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon (1953), Judy Garland’s plaintive rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz (1939), Gene Kelly’s exuberant performance of the title song in Singin’ in the Rain (1952), and dozens more. The picture also spotlights rarely scene clips, including Clark Gable performing “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in Idiot’s Delight (1939), and features montages celebrating the work of such Golden Age stars as Lena Horne, Ann Miller, and Esther Williams.

          The clips are nearly all dazzling, running the gamut from outrageous Busby Berkeley-directed spectacles to simple vocal performances, and the film’s seven editors did a remarkable job of organizing the material into logical sections while also creating a smooth flow. Writer-producer-director Jack Haley Jr.’s use of MGM stars as hosts works, too, because their participation validates the piece; furthermore, seeing the passage of time through their aging faces and physiques amplifies the nostalgia of recalling a magical era from the past. (Accentuating this effect, many of the hosts are shot walking through decrepit sections of the long-unused MGM backlot.)

          The impressive roster of hosts includes Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Peter Lawford, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, and the late Judy Garland’s daughter, Liza Minnelli, who presents a sweet segment about “Mama.” Each host offers a canned anecdote or two, and then narrates a few minutes of clips, so Haley creates the illusion of old friends sharing memories at a reunion. That’s Entertainment! is total fluff, but it lives up to its title and, in a cheerfully superficial sort of way, provides a history lesson simply by cataloguing the best output from one studio.

          Alas, the film’s first sequel, That’s Entertainment, Part II, is not nearly as charming. Kelly took over the directing chores, and he co-hosts the entire film exclusively with fellow song-and-dance legend Astaire. (Songwriter Sammy Cahn makes an ineffectual appearance during one quick bit.) Kelly and his team cast a wider net for different types of clips, since most of MGM’s best musical numbers were used in the previous film. As a result, this picture features random montages about great movie lines, plus such extended comedy bits as the Marx Brothers’ classic “stateroom” scene from A Night at the Opera (1935). Combined with the lack of organization—the movie jumps around between eras and genres—the inclusion of nonmusical scenes makes That’s Entertainment, Part II confusing and unfocused. Worse, Kelly stages all of the hosting bits as musical numbers. While it’s fun to see Astaire and Kelly hoofing together, their age and a general lack of inspiration makes these original production numbers seem second-rate when juxtaposed with classic clips. Nonetheless, the franchise soldiered on with a quasi-official follow-up called That’s Dancing In 1985 and then an official, made-for-TV threequel called That’s Entertainment III in 1994.

That’s Entertainment!: GROOVY

That’s Entertainment, Part II: FUNKY

Evel Knievel (1971) & Viva Knievel! (1977)

          For most of the ’70s, real-life daredevil Evel Knievel was a ubiquitous figure in kiddie-oriented pop culture, thanks to death-defying TV appearances, a line of cool toys, and regular ads on the back covers of comic books. A classically American entrepreneur whose gift for hucksterism far exceeded the virtues of the product he sold, Knievel was a circus act writ large, making a small fortune off the public’s interest in whether he could survive doing things like flying a rocket across Snake Canyon. Cinematic tributes were inevitable, because Knievel did visually interesting things while wearing colorful costumes and issuing glib soundbites and outlandish boasts.
          Watched chronologically, the two features made about Knievel in the ’70s show the daredevil’s self-promotional hubris in ascension and decline.

          While not precisely an underappreciated gem, the 1971 release Evel Knievel is so cartoonishly enjoyable that it’s a shame the picture is only currently available via rotten public-domain prints. Co-written by John Milius, the right man for the job given his affection for larger-than-life macho heroes, the sprightly picture plays out like the origin story of a noble warrior whose motorcycle is his weapon for flouting the expectations of conventional society. George Hamilton, putting his superficial charms to great use by playing a character beloved for his superficial charms, portrays Knievel in a present-day wrap-around bit as Knievel prepares for a big stunt, and also in a series of jaunty flashbacks depicting the burgeoning stuntman’s discovery of his gifts. The Knievel in this movie is rebellious ’50s biker who never grew up, so by the time Hamilton dons Knievel’s signature red-white-and-blue jumpsuit for the climax, it’s as if we’ve watched a masked adventurer embrace his fate. Furthermore, Hamilton’s cheerful performance and Milius’ oversized dialogue create the pleasant illusion that Knievel’s odyssey is something inspirational instead of just the evolution of a crass gimmick. (Hamilton even dares to suggest that Knievel got nervous before jumps, giving the story a smidgen of humanity.) And if Evel Knievel is ultimately little more than the equivalent of a fluffy telefilm, it's exactly the right gee-whiz commercial for all that groovy swag Ideal Toys peddled throughout the ’70s.

          The bloom comes off the rose very quickly when one watches Viva Knievel!, however, and not just because the real-life Knievel is a dud playing himself. Paunchy, stilted, and a little bit nasty, Knievel seems less like an adventurer and more like an asshole, which by all reports is closer to the truth—though unquestionably brave and tough, Knievel was also a drinker and a hothead. The sense one gets of unseemly reality showing through a glossy façade is exacerbated by the ridiculous storyline of Viva Knievel!, which portrays the lead character as an international superhero. While traveling to Mexico for a stunt, Knievel defeats a gang of cocaine smugglers who are conspiring to kill him and use his 18-wheeler to transport drugs; inspires a group of orphans by secretly visiting them at night to deliver Evel Knievel action figures; and resolves the family tensions between his alcoholic mechanic and the mechanic’s estranged son. Model-turned-actress Lauren Hutton shows up as Knievel’s love interest, which means she spends a lot of time telling the hero how gosh-darn wonderful he is, and colorful figures including Red Buttons, Gene Kelly, Cameron Mitchell, and Leslie Nielsen round out the principal cast.

Evel Knievel: FUNKY

Viva Knievel! LAME

The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)

          A charming Western comedy in the vein of Howard Hawks’ cowboy classics, this amiable picture pairs two of the genre’s greatest stars, Henry Fonda and James Stewart, in a lively story that both pokes fun at their wholesome images and suits their advanced ages at the time the movie was made. John O’Hanlan (Stewart) and Harley Sullivan (Fonda) are graying cowpokes working on a Texas ranch when John receives word that he’s inherited a business from his late brother. They travel to Wyoming, where they discover the business is actually a brothel, much to the chagrin of aw-shucks John. Aghast at the idea of running a house of ill repute, John decides to close the Cheyenne Social Club, which makes him a pariah among the business’ loyal patrons, but then he discovers he can’t cash out his inheritance. Furthermore, when the club’s sunny madam, Jenny (Shirley Jones), is attacked by a client, John’s sense of Texas justice kicks in and starts him down the road of developing a proprietary interest in the ladies’ welfare. Unfortunately for John, his noble actions make him a target for a huge clan of no-good varmints, meaning an extended stay in Cheyenne would be hazardous to his health.
          Smoothly directed by studio-era Hollywood pro Gene Kellly, the dancer/filmmaker of Singin’ in the Rain fame, The Cheyenne Social Club is unabashedly old-fashioned, even with a handful of modern touches like location photography and brief nudity, so the dialogue gets a bit corny at times, there’s a great deal of sitcom-style patter between the stars, and the plotting is slick and uncomplicated. The Cheyenne Social Club also features the most whitewashed portrayal of prostitution this side of Pretty Woman (1990), which might make it unpalatable for some viewers. The cheerfully vanilla picture undoubtedly felt archaic in an era of revisionist Westerns, but seen with modern eyes, it’s as diverting as anything Hawks or Henry Hathaway helmed in the heyday of big-screen oaters. Fonda amusingly undercuts his heroic image by portraying a fellow more inclined to run from a fight than run into one, and Stewart uses his signature flummoxed stammer to great effect as a character unaccustomed to being a “man of property.” The Cheyenne Social Club isn’t a laugh-out-loud comedy so much as it’s a lighthearted yarn with comic touches, but that’s a good thing: The picture delivers a broad spectrum of entertainment, from action to jokes to romance, over the course of 103 amiable minutes.

The Cheyenne Social Club: GROOVY