La Cage aux Folles II *** (1980, Michel Serrault, Ugo Tognazzi, Marcel Bozzuffi) – Classic Movie Review 10,425

Director Edouard Molinaro’s 1980 comedy sequel La Cage aux Folles II finds that part two unexpectedly answers the awkward questions arising from the 1978 part one, La Cage aux Folles, as Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi successfully reprise their original roles of the flamboyant drag queen Albin (Michel Serrault) at the St Tropez night-club run by the straight-acting other partner Renato (Ugo Tognazzi).

The couple get mixed up with gangsters, spies and cops and hide out in Italy, where the female impersonator finds out that being a real woman isn’t getting up in feathers at night but is getting up at dawn and working your fingers to the bone when the men are out having a good time. And, in a touching moment of danger, the couple get to kiss, and gay love speaks its name.

Unlike La Cage aux Folles, it moves more like a real film this time because it is based on an original script (by La Cage aux Folles playwright Jean Poiret among others, including Francis Veber and Marcello Danon) and not a stage play.

La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding followed in 1985.

Also in the cast are Marcel Bozzuffi, Paola Borboni, Michel Galabru and Benny Luke.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,425

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