I'm watching 'Can't Stop the Music'.

Would love to see a movie Can't Stop the Sound of Music = a disco era version of the Von Trapps.

Now there's an idea!

The straight crew on CSTM called it Can't Stop The Faggots.

Wow, that is one terrible trailer. I’ve never heard of this movie. Now, I know why.

I just realised the hot guy in the movie is Bruce Jenner.

Wow.

I met someone who knew Allan Carr and had worked on the movie in a gay bar. They were either a producer or some other upper level role. I forget. Anyway, they said they really had to hand to Allan. He was always saying to boys "Come to bed with me and I'll put you in a movie", and with the YMCA number he delivered on his promise.

I LOVE this movie!

And now I love that it’s an Australian New Year’s Eve tradition.

The hot guy for me is Steve Guttenberg.

for R6

I had forgotten that Dainty June is in this!

Guttenberg is very cute in this movie.

Apparently Police Academy 8 is in the works.

Did I just see a penis?

I never miss a Valerie Perrine musical.

It was Bruce Jenner's "Star!".

And people thought Steve G was straight after this?

Everyone’s straight in this movie. Even the Village People.

straight to the next cock

Hey, let's make it into a Broadway musical!

I am embarrassed to say that my husband and I were extras. We were on the dancefloor during the big ending number. What a piece of trash! Allan Carr was a predatory POS. Complete chicken hawk.

it didn't succeed because upon its release both disco and the Village People were out of style and punk rock and new wave music was the thing.

poor Valerie Perrine is not in good health these days

Funny Jeopardy question last week said the 5th sequel to this series was so inconsequential or something like that so that even Steve Guttenberg turned it down! Answer: Police Academy, but talk about an insult!

Now that Valerie Perrine has been mentioned, I'm thinking, do we see Dustin Hoffman's pubes in Lenny, at least in a picture when he's discovered on the toilet?

side note: Joan Rivers was obsessed with Lenny Bruce's mom Sally Marr and produced and starred in a Broadway play about her. Joan tried hard, really hard, to do justice to her in the play but the audience just wasn't there for the material.

Are you queens drunk already. None of you can stay on-topic!

I was there too R17. They pushed the gay guys back from the front stage to look more hero. We had fun. Long time ago.

I think its funny that its a NYE tradition in Oz

R17 and R24, tell us some stories.

Actually I think the movie isn't very campy. That is the problem it takes the creation of the Village People rather seriously.

The producer, Allan Carr, with his girlfriend. Many assumed he was gay because of this movie, but he wasn't.

It's basically an extended version of the "Sonny and Cher" variety hour brought to the big screen for some reason that nobody remembers. I find it so random that Nancy Walker directed this dreck.

"The Day Disco Died" - July 12, 1979

Release date of "Can't Stop the Music" - June 12, 1980

[quote]side note: Joan Rivers was obsessed with Lenny Bruce's mom Sally Marr and produced and starred in a Broadway play about her. Joan tried hard, really hard, to do justice to her in the play but the audience just wasn't there for the material.

I saw that play and it was a terrible piece of shit. Joan drained every single interesting thing about Sally Marr and threw it away. Had she concentrated on what made Sally Marr interesting, it would have been a good play. The rape scene was on the same level as Blonde In A Thunderbird, it was really that bad.

Is R29's post a joke? That's Carr with Michelle Pfeiffer and her then-husband Peter Horton (from Thirtysomething).

I was a far superior Sally Marr!

“I will only direct this film if I can clean the Nile of jizz flowing from the dressing rooms with Bounty - the quicker picker upper!”

Meh. It’s pretty much unwatchable really - you’d have to be drunk to get through it - so NYE would be perfect really.

I’m in Oz - and hadn’t heard mention anywhere that it’s become anyone’s NYE tradition - stop trying to make You Can’t Stop the Music happen OP!

Having said that... the film did do well in Oz on release - it was I think - the ONLY market it performed well in. I seem to remember at the time that we were invaded by Alan Carr - and he brought the Village People and Perrine - and they were on every show and in every newspaper and magazine. It was intense publicity of a type not usually seen here - and it worked! BO for it downunder was great! But not like that would make up for it bombing everywhere else. I’ve often wondered what the story was with them coming over and working or so hard here. It can’t have been cheap to do so...? It was weird.

Olivia Newton-John was offered a starring role but she turned it down to star in Xanadu.

I think the musical numbers really lack energy, except YMCA, which is pretty much a music video.

The last seen (You Can't Stop the Music), is just poorly directed and is often just a long shot of the stage.

I demand a Baz Lurman remake in 2019.

OMG

*scene not seen

I am ashamed. Start judging me bitches!

Caitlin's furry abs are the real star of the show!

I saw it on the first day of release at the Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights, MI. Me and more 2 or 3 friends were the only ones there.

R37 - read that bio of Alan Carr - Party Animals - a while back and can’t remrmber the details - but think Carr ended up pretty unhappy with ONJ as he wanted her to be in this and the Grease sequel - and she passed. He felt she owed him since he’d made her a movie star - and I suspect she was always lovely to him when they met - but really just wanted to escape the crazy. And there was sooooo much drama and crazy with him! Not to mention profligate spending - and a big hit of sleaze! We’ve all gossip les a lot about Brian Singer and his coterie and their wild parties - Carr did it long before then - only difference was that the handsome young men all appeared to be of legal age...

But it was a big deal nonetheless. Gay Hollywood had thrown plenty of parties over the years! - the ones we mainly hear about - cukor and James Whale in the thirties and Rock Hudson and his set the sixties - all did it - but all had to keep it discreet. Not so Carr - who kinda threw open the closet doors and took a bunch of others too! He was fierce! Thought he was indestructible and didn’t give a damn who saw the fun and games... so can imagine as it grew more outragous that many more mainstream types felt the need for some distance...but the hijinx must’ve been sooooo tempting! (and bet anyone who did attend and is still alive now looks back and is very glad there were no smartphones back then to record the goings on!)

When Valerie Perrine is entering Christopher Park, we see an A&P across the street. Later Martin's Paints, it's now CVS. s

Who is Christopher Park? Is he Korean? Not in IMDb.

Fellow Aussie here and I will would LOVE to know why it’s been programmed on or around midnight on NYE for the past 10 years or so. Who decided this movie would be the one to usher in the new year? It’s a mystery.

Allen Carr was one of the gayest gays to ever GAY.

R46 - he kinda had a bit of a Truman capote trajectory - without the wit and style. A gay icon more in tune with the masses...

R45 longer than ten years, it was definitely also played on NYEs in my youth (90s), wasn't screened for several years, then came back. Perhaps there were requests? No idea why its now a NYE institution but Oz was the only market in which the film was a hit. Taste, we have not!

While enjoying a holiday in Berlin with my parents (I was around 20), my plans for some outing fell through at the last minute and I suddenly found myself with nothing to do, so I wound up going to see [italic]Can't Stop the Music,[/italic] which had only very recently been released in Europe and was playing at a nearby theater. Talk about surreal…

While the musical numbers were in English, the dialogue was dubbed into German, and none of the voices seemed to match the characters. I spoke no German whatsoever, but it didn't seem to matter, as I soon realized there wasn't even a semblance of a plot. To my knowledge, I was the only American in the audience, which was fairly sizable for a throw-away movie. The song [italic]YMCA[/italic] was already pretty popular, and the disco movement was well underway, and the Germans seemed pretty receptive.

The showing I attended was very receptive and seemed to love it. Surprisingly (to me) there were hardly any gay people in attendance. Most of the movie-goers were young straight couples. For some reason, this has remained one of the main highlights of my trip.

R48 - I didn’t realise it was on oz tv every NYE - I don’t tend to watch tv then - but...

Maybe it’s laziness on the part of the channel involved? You said it was on for years in the nineties - then went away - then came back? My understanding was that tv channels here bought the rights to screen movies in various blocks - so they’d spend x dollars and it’d give then screening rights to all the movies made by one or more studios between certain years. This meant they’d get a certain amount of key big tickets movies, but also a lot of B - and C - and Z! - grade product to use as filler as well.

So maybe the channel involved had the rights to screen YCSTM for several years - then didn’t - and now they - or another channel - does. And whoever is responsible for programming now has been told it’s a tradition and it just becomes a no brainer to schedule it. The way Wizard of Oz gets screened annually in the US, along with It’s a Wonderful Life. And at Mardi Gras time here - Priscilla usually gets an airing, etc.

That’s how it used to work - it might be different now? Anyone in Oz know how the system works now?

There was a previous thread on the Allan Carr documentary The Fabulous Allan Carr. It failed to mention his infamous quote about ONJ after she rejected Can't Stop the Music - 'Who does she think she is? Streisand!'

Olivia was bigger than the shit that was CSTM. Xanadu (which came out a bit later) was a shitty movie but at least it had a budget. Mega millions went into the marketing of Xanadu.

R17 here. A little backstory. Around 1977 or so a company called Conceptual Entertainment, threw a huge dance party at a location known as "The Galleria Design Center." A few years prior Nautilus Gyms became popular. All the flab disappeared and the men of SF suddenly became buff! Working out became the fad. The Body Center was ground zero. These parties were drug and alcohol-fueled. Several thousand great looking men in one space. The DJ was famous out here and knew how to get the crowd going wild. At the top of the atrium were two huge retractable skylights. At one point they would open and the SF fog would rush down to the dance floor cooling the space. These parties went from 10 pm to dawn. Allen Carr was at one of these shindigs and was so enthusiastic about all the gorgeous men and atmosphere, in general, he decided to recreate the scene for his stupid movie. We were regulars at these events so we went to the filming. Sadly as has been reported they hired lots of women so it wasn't all men. It didn't work that well and it shows in the final product.

[quote]Who is Christopher Park? Is he Korean? Not in IMDb.

Well if Valerie is entering him, I guess we can surmise he liked being pegged.

Whatever was the reasoning about making a movie starring the Village People?

Olivia didn't want to do "Grease 2," which showed good judgment on her part. But good judgment can be fleeting, as she proved when she agreed to reunite with Travolta for the godawful "Two of a Kind."

I worked as a stand-in on "Two of a Kind" and remember overhearing some crew members talking about how Travolta was gay and Olivia was a lez.

By the time TWO OF A KIND came around, ONJ's film career had already dried up, so it's not like she had other options. She wasn't much of an actress to begin with, and the major flop of XANADU almost finished her. KIND was a bet that audiences would come see her and Travolta again, which didn't happen. His star had already faded as well.

Does anyone know how in the world Nancy Walker of all people came to direct Can't Stop the Music? Besides all the obvious questions, I don't think she'd ever directed a movie or anything before this. Was she a friend of Carr's?

She could cook,......

[quote]I worked as a stand-in on "Two of a Kind" and remember overhearing some crew members talking about how Travolta was gay and Olivia was a lez.

So you weren't the only Datalounger working on the set that day?

It was never rumored on the set of two of a kind that anything happened. It’s dl fantasy island time.

That scene where the leather man sings Danny Boy is one of the worst scenes ever!

[quote]So you weren't the only Datalounger working on the set that day?

Apparently not, R61!

I was there and I heard that everyone is gay!

I have a friend who was so mesmerized by this film that he stole the publicity stills from the movie theater's lobby

That's how gay he is

Olivia would have been late 30's had she made Grease 2.

She was 33 when Grease 2 was filmed.

It's not unusual for students at Rydell High to be 33 years old.

Same for Beverly Hills High.

Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll Starring the Fabulous Allan Carr by Robert Hofler is a really good read. Allan Carr was so off the wall, and the book also details how crazy and druggy Hollywood in that era was.

Party Animals looks better than it is - all I remember was Walker and Perrine not getting along.

I think the deal with Two of a Kind was that John was pissed that Olivia kept rejecting all the scripts he proposed for them to be reunited on screen. So he said if she didn't do this film, that was it!

Agreed R72 - Party Animals should have been a great read! - yet I really had to push to get through it. Amazing that someone could take a really interesting, outrageous subject - and make it leaden and dull... urgh!

[Quote] For some reason it has become an Australian, New Years tradition.

I don't understand why but then again, I don't know why they don't show the fireworks on any of the main channels anymore.

Nancy Walker was a very demanding director = she kept demanding needless takes from Valerie Perrine saying "One more time!" until Valerie exploded "For chrissakes Nancy - how many ways can a person say One More Time?" I think Allan Carr or someone eventually ended up directing the film after Nancy walked off the set or they fired her;

In the Allan Carr documentary it is reported that Nancy Walker left the premiere, not wanting to watch the film which she called a POS.

lol r77

The best scene is the gang showers.

[quote] Why didn't this iconic production make $100 million?

No hit songs, for starters. And that's not because disco had been declared dead, the songs just sucked. I was never that into it, a very weird movie that I suppose could be appreciated on a "so bad it's good" level. I can't imagine enjoying it any other way.

David Hodo was so HOT!

Disco was on the way down the toilet when this movie came out in June 1980.

I loved Party Animals! It's one of those books I pick up and read over and over and over. Fun stuff.

Pure trash book

Ah, Marilyn Sokol is in this. Loved her in Foul Play.

[quote]David Hodo was so HOT!

Until his sunglasses come off.

I want to hear some of Randy Jones stories.

I did not know this before, referenced from Party Animals. Location shooting in in New York was somewhat complicated by adjacent protests by gay activists over the William Friedkin film Cruising which was filming on location nearby The two productions were mistaken for each other more than once, with protestors disrupting the Can't Stop the Music location shoots when they intended to halt production of Cruising.

I’d rather watch a flock of sparrows devour a pile of cow flop!

r89, that's not saying much because that actually sounds entertaining.

The failure of the film cost us Goldie and Liza's Chicago, and Diana in The Josephine Baker Story.

Goldie and Liza would've been great in Chicago. A shame that never got made.

[quote] Disco was on the way down the toilet when this movie came out in June 1980.

But the songs sucked anyway. If they'd bothered to produce one song as good as their well-known anthems, for their friggin' movie, it would've gotten out there and people would've heard it. Diana Ross and Lipps Inc both had huge disco smashes in late 1980.

I looked up some of the songs from the soundtrack on Youtube, and yes they were terrible.