La Cage aux Folles *** (1978, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Serrault, Claire Maurier) – Classic Movie Review 7228

Director Édouard Molinaro’s rather rancid, risqué 1978 French farce La Cage aux Folles about an elderly gay couple, one of whom is the flamboyant drag queen Albin (Michel Serrault), at the St Tropez night-club run by the straight-acting other partner Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) is desperate to please and past its sell-by date. And in 1978, it pleased a lot of people. La Cage aux Folles was hugely popular and well meaning but now seems just stale, reactionary and hopelessly out of its time.

Like The Boys in the Band, it is one of those gay milestone plays and films that has an awkward place in gay history. However, attacking it years later, seems a bit like Spike Lee attacking the vintage comedy actor Mantan Moreland, understandable but not fully understanding, or willing to understand. It is another time, another place. They can’t entirely be consigned to the dustbin of history, because, anyway, history is not a dustbin. The films are still with us, if we want to see them. Nobody took out the trash, while conserving the gems.

Mantan Moreland (1902–1973).

But Jean Poiret’s French stage play became a hugely popular international hit movie thanks to Molinaro’s seamless stage-to-film transfer of the eager farcical material and Serrault’s expertly outrageous performance as the madame of the pair. As a low-class comedy, it lacks sophistication from a nation who are generally very sophisticated, though it does have a lot of zest and the courage of its own silly convictions. And it does not lack achievement in terms of professionalism and performance.

Those who saw the stage musical version or the 1996 American film remake The Birdcage will know the plot: Renato (Tognazzi)’s real son from a single straight fling announces he is getting married and Renato tells Albin (Serrault) to act straight to impress the son’s fiancée’s parents, who are arriving for dinner to meet everybody. But when everyone meets up at La Cage aux Folles night-club, the farce of ridiculous pretense and confusion begins, as Albin pretends to be Renato’s wife.

Admittedly, it is meant to be attacking homophobia, but it is doing is very clumsily and broadly, confirming outmoded stereotypes. Why, it has even got a staggeringly obvious point to make: be yourself, especially if you are a drag queen. There again, that might have been meaningful in 1978 before this truth became a cliché.

Until Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), it was the biggest grossing foreign film.

It was nominated for three Oscars: Best Director, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Édouard Molinaro, Francis Veber, Marcello Danon, Jean Poiret), and Best Costume Design (Piero Tosi, Ambra Danon).

La Cage aux Folles also features Michel Galabru, Claire Maurier, Remi Laurent and Benny Luke.

Two sequels followed: La Cage aux Folles II (1980) and La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding (1985). And it is remade as The Birdcage in 1996.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7227

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