This may well be the Twentieth Century’s answer to THE SATYRICON: a wild, fragmentary relic from a long-lost era of unimaginable decadence. That era was the late 1970s, when disco ruled the airwaves, drugs were plentiful and sex (of every conceivable variety) even more so. The first of those three elements is very much present in this PG-rated 1980 fiasco, which had the misfortune to arrive when disco (billed here as “the sound of the eighties”) was on its way out, while the other two are merely implied (albeit very strongly so).
The auteur behind CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC is indicated by the name plastered all over it: the late Allan Carr (1937-99), a famously flamboyant (read: gay) producer/manager/promoter. He was coming off producing the hugely successful GREASE (1978), and used his newfound clout to go hog-wild in a mega-budgeted film that promised to “bring back the production spectaculars too long missing from the motion picture scene.” Featured were the Village People, along with Valerie Perrine (in a role intended for Olivia Newton John), Steve Guttenberg and a non-actor then known as Bruce Jenner. Carr’s skills as a showman were in full evidence, and resulted in him convincing Baskin-Robbins to add an ice cream flavor called “Can’t Stop the Nuts” in exchange for a truly shameless onscreen plug (in which Perrine states she’s “going for a Baskin-Robbins rush”), although in most other aspects he fell short, starting with his choice of director.
Nancy Walker (1922-92) was an actress-comedian best known for coining the phrase “the quicker picker-upper” in a 1970-90 series of Downey commercials. CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC was her one and only feature directorial credit, and by all accounts she was woefully ill-equipped for the job. Miss Walker herself seemed quite aware of this, and the film’s inherent shortcomings; as she allegedly told TV host Robert Osborne at the film’s premiere, “You don’t think I’m gonna sit through this piece of shit, do you?”
Carr claimed to have conceived CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC while watching the Village People perform on TV. The film purports to be an origin story of how the group came to be, although in reality it’s a wish fulfillment fantasy on the part of Carr. His autobiographical stand-in is Jack Morell (Guttenberg), a happy-go-lucky fellow who like Carr is a dental school dropout with show-biz dreams. He resides in “neighborly New York” with Samantha Simpson (Perrine), a retired supermodel who confers little brother status on Jack (as the CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC tie-in book states, “it’s better for a sexy girl to think of you as her little brother than not think of you at all”).
By Carr’s own admission, producing is a very difficult occupation to express dramatically. That explains why Jack’s precise ambition is never defined, with he at various points assuming the roles of a DJ, writer and promoter. He eventually hits upon the creation of a super band composed of an Indian headdress wearing Puerto Rican, a toll-taker, a cop, a construction worker, a G.I. and a cowboy (none of whom ever bother to change their outfits).
With help from Samantha’s contacts, including her record mogul ex-flame Steve (Paul Sand) and current boytoy Ron (Jenner)—who depending on the whims of the script assumes the guises of an uptight square and belly shirt wearing exhibitionist—the Village People become popular. Not that there’s any question that they won’t, as the band’s mega-success is taken as a given even before it’s been fully formed, with the sole note of conflict being a lowball financial offering by Steve. It all concludes at a charity fundraiser put on by Ron’s mother, in which the Village People sing the title song to an adoring crowd while glitter rains form the ceiling and Jack, Samantha and Ron stand on a raised platform to admire their handywork, and impart the message that (again quoting from the tie-in book) “There is magic in the world.”
About the film’s production the phrase “Can’t stop the cocaine” is often thrown around, and the perpetually grinning, hyperactive performers do indeed seem coked-up. That aura extends to the storytelling, which is constantly losing focus; much is made about Samantha losing a contact lens early on, until the subject is dropped and never mentioned again, while a mid-film gambit by Ron to turn a YMCA into a rehearsal studio serves only as an excuse for the Village People to perform their most famous song amid a bevy of semi-clad young men.
The YMCA music number (the film’s most overtly gay portion) was supposed to be the standout set-piece, but I’d give that designation to the “Milkshake” sequence. Taking place in a landscape of white balloons, giant milkshakes and a jacuzzi-sized champagne glass in which Samantha lounges while the Village People needle her with giant straws, it’s as wild and outrageous as anything in Ken Russell’s TOMMY (on which Allan Carr worked as a publicist), and proves that the film, for all its failings, wasn’t lacking in audacity.
Other standout music numbers include “I Love You to Death,” involving pipes, ducts and seductive women dressed all in red, and the altogether bizarre sight of Steve Guttenberg roller skating down the streets of Manhattan while dancing to a portable radio, seemingly unaware of the surrounding cars. The nonchalant weirdness of this and other scenes suggests that Carr and his collaborators might possibly have been under the influence of an illegal substance other than cocaine, as summed up by one commentator’s wholly accurate observation that the film plays like “a gay boy’s acid trip.”
Vital Statistics
CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC
Associated Film Distribution
Director: Nancy Walker
Producers: Allan Carr, Henri Belolo, Jacques Morali
Screenplay: Allan Carr, Bronte Woodard
Cinematography: Bill Butler
Editing: John F. Burnett
Cast: Valerie Perrine, Steve Guttenberg, “Bruce Jenner” (Caitlin Jenner), Paul Sand, Tammy Grimes, Alex Briley, David Hodo, Glenn Hughes, Randy Jones, Felipe Rose, Ray Simpson, June Havoc, Barbara Rush, Altovise Davis, Marilyn Sokol, Russell Nype, Jack Weston, Leigh Taylor-Young