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La Cage aux Folles (film)
1978 film by Édouard Molinaro From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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La Cage aux Folles ([la kaʒ o fɔl], also released as Birds of a Feather) is a 1978 comedy film co-written and directed by Édouard Molinaro, based on Jean Poiret's 1973 play. It stars Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault as a gay couple operating a drag nightclub on the French Riviera, Rémi Laurent as the former's son, and Michel Galabru and Carmen Scarpitta as his new fiancée's ultraconservative parents. The French-language picture was a French-Italian co-production by United Artists.[4]
The film was released in Italy on 20 October 1978 and in France on 25 October. A considerable commercial success, it became one of the highest-grossing foreign-language films released in the United States. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for three Oscars: Best Director (Molinaro), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Costume Design.[5] Michel Serrault won the César Award for Best Actor.[6] It was followed by two sequels, with Tognazzi, Serrault, Galabru, and Luke reprising their roles.[7][8] The 1983 musical and the 1996 American film The Birdcage were adapted from the same source material.
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Plot
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In Saint-Tropez, Renato Baldi and Albin Mougeotte are a middle-aged gay couple who have been together for 20 years. Renato is the owner of the drag nightclub downstairs from their apartment, La Cage aux Folles, where Albin is the main attraction under the drag persona Zaza Napoli. One evening, Renato is taken aback when his 20 year-old son from a brief heterosexual fling, Laurent, announces his engagement to Andréa, the daughter of Simon Charrier, the secretary-general of an ultraconservative political party called the Union for Moral Order. Terrified of her strict parents, Andréa lies that Laurent's father is a cultural attaché at the Italian Embassy and his mother is a housewife.
When the president of the Union for Moral Order dies suddenly in the arms of an underage prostitute, Simon worries about his own reputation as reporters begin to hound him. Although Simon initially believes that Andréa is too young to marry, his wife Louise convinces him that their daughter's marriage to a diplomat's son is the perfect opportunity to restore his image and deflect attention from the ensuing scandal. Meanwhile, Laurent informs Renato that he has invited Andréa and her parents over for dinner to meet his family. To avoid shocking his future in-laws, Laurent asks his father to conceal his homosexuality and redecorate his flamboyant apartment; Renato reluctantly agrees.
Renato tries to convince Albin to stay out of the apartment during the Charriers' visit, but seeing how hurt Albin is, Renato relents and agrees to let him stay. To make their charade more believable, Renato visits Laurent's biological mother, Simone—whom Laurent has not seen in nearly 20 years—and asks her to pretend to be his wife for the evening. Simone agrees, but Renato gives in to her advances, and their tryst is caught by Albin, who is heartbroken and moves out of the apartment. Renato finds Albin at a train station and convinces him to return home.
On the evening of the dinner party, Simone calls to tell Laurent that she is on her way, asking him if he still wants her to come, to which he agrees. As the Charriers arrive for the dinner, Renato and Laurent engage in small talk with Simon and Louise, while Andréa, who knows the truth about Laurent's family, plays along. However, Albin unexpectedly arrives in full drag and poses as Laurent's mother, which makes Renato and Laurent nervous. During dinner, Renato denies owning La Cage aux Folles, and Albin's wig is knocked askew, which is immediately noticed by Simon and Louise.
When Simone arrives, announcing that she is Laurent's mother, Renato and Albin confess the truth to the Charriers, just before the drag queens from La Cage aux Folles enter the apartment to congratulate Renato and Albin on their 20th anniversary. Outraged, Simon and Louise try to leave, only to find that reporters, having bribed the Charriers' chauffeur for information, have blocked the back door, eager to take pictures of Simon leaving the nightclub. Albin dresses Simon up in drag so that the Charriers can leave without being photographed by the reporters, who are now swarming the nightclub. The scheme is successful.
Some time later, Laurent and Andréa get married. At the ceremony, a jealous Albin complains to Renato that Simone is also in attendance and sitting next to Andréa's parents.
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Cast
- Ugo Tognazzi as Renato Baldi
- Michel Serrault as Albin Mougeotte / Zaza Napoli
- Claire Maurier as Simone Deblon
- Rémi Laurent as Laurent Baldi
- Carmen Scarpitta as Louise Charrier
- Benny Luke as Jacob
- Luisa Maneri as Andréa Charrier
- Michel Galabru as Simon Charrier
- Venantino Venantini as the Charriers' chauffeur
- Carlo Reali as the bouncer
- Guido Cerniglia as the doctor
- Angelo Pellegrino as a nightclub assistant
- Vinicio Diamanti as Mercedes
- Liana Del Balzo as Madame Charrier, Simon's mother
- Piero Mazzinghi as a journalist
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Production
Exterior filming was on-location in Saint-Tropez and Nice, and interiors were shot at Dear Film and Cinecitta Studios in Rome, Italy. The film was inspired by the Paris drag cabaret Chez Michou.[9]
Reception
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Box office
La Cage aux Folles was the second highest-grossing film of 1978 in France with 5,406,614 admissions. In Germany, it received 2.65 million admissions, making it the 11th highest-grossing film of the year.[10] As of 2025[update], it is the 13th highest-grossing foreign-language film released in the United States.[11]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an aproval rating of 92% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "La Cage aux Folles is a fine French-Italian farce with flamboyant, charming characters and deep laughs."[12]
Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that "the comic turns in the plot are achieved with such clockwork timing that sometimes we're laughing at what's funny and sometimes we're just laughing at the movie's sheer comic invention. This is a great time at the movies."[13]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote in a negative review that the film "is naughty in the way of comedies that pretend to be sophisticated but actually serve to reinforce the most popular conventions and most witless stereotypes."[14] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "For me, La Cage aux Folles was over soon after it began. It's all so predictable. This could have been a Luci & Desi comedy routine. The film's only distinctive quality is the skill of its veteran actors in working with tired material."[15]
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film "a frequently hilarious French variation on Norman, Is That You? and has the same broad humor and appeal but has been put over with considerably more aplomb."[16] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post panned the film for "stale, excruciating sex jokes" and direction that "has evidently failed to devise a playing rhythm to compensate for whatever farcical tempo the material enjoyed on the stage."[17]
David McGillivray of the Monthly Film Bulletin described the film as "a crude amalgam of Norman, Is That You? and John Bowen's play Trevor ... All shrieks, mincing and limp wrists, La Cage aux Folles also looks positively antiquated beside the sophisticated gay comedy of such as Craig Russell."[18]
Accolades
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Legacy
The film was followed by two sequels: La Cage aux Folles II (1980), also directed by Molinaro, and La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding (1985), directed by Georges Lautner.
The 1983 Broadway musical La Cage aux Folles, based on the original play rather than the film, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and a book by Harvey Fierstein, was also successful.[19][20]
The 1996 American remake The Birdcage, directed by Mike Nichols and written by Elaine May, moved the plot to South Beach and starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.[21]
La Cage aux Folles caught the attention of television producer Danny Arnold, who in 1979 pitched the concept of a weekly series about a gay couple similar to the one in the film to ABC. His planned title was Adam and Yves, a play on both Adam and Eve and a slogan used by some anti-gay groups. After months in development, Arnold realized that the concept was unsustainable as a weekly series, which led to the show getting dropped.[22]
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See also
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