“THIS is the sound of the ‘80s!”

Drake’s rating: Sooooo sparkly….

Drake’s review: You think you know a website, right? I mean, here’s Mutant Reviewers (or, as Chris might say, “Mutant Reviewers Movies DOT com”), the home of cult flicks spanning the decades, right? We have reviews of films galore, covering a wide variety of directors, stars, eras and studios. We have reviews covering the gamut from low-budget exploitation quickies to big-budget blockbusters, and everything in between.

And, yes, we do have a few musicals here. Of course, these aren’t your grandparents’ MGM musical extravaganzas featuring Danny Kaye or Bing Crosby. No, instead we have the legendary flop Xanadu, kindly reviewed by Lissa, and Andie’s review of that craptastic waste of time known as Grease 2. We even have the Bee Gees two-hour attempt at covering the Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, reviewed by some stupid schmuck who really should have known better.

But said stupid schmuck is a notoriously slow learner, which brings us to Can’t Stop the Music, one of the cultiest of cult musicals made during the late ‘70s musical craze that erupted with a bang when Saturday Night Fever became a major hit and ended with a wheezing whimper the second that Menahem Golan’s bizarre morality tale The Apple was laughed out of theaters across the globe.

As I was moving back into my Mutant Office,* I made the mistake of asking Justin just why this fictitious biopic about the formation of the Village People was absent from the fabled Mutant annals. He looked somber for a moment, scratched his beard, and then pointed at me with his Mutant Thwack Stick™ and rumbled, “Make it so.”

He’s been on a real Star Trek: The Next Generation kick lately.

So, yes, a dumb but innocent question from a stupid yet generally well-meaning Mutant Reviewer has brought us all to this. And what “this” is, is an incomprehensible decision by EMI Films to attempt to promote the fast-fading disco music era in a full-length, and very expensive, theatrical release starring a single reliable name alongside a total unknown and a former track star, all directed by a middle-aged actress who had never even sat behind the camera for one frame of a feature film before.

That’s just like five different bad ideas all rolled into one.

The story centers around Jack (Steve Gutenberg, Police Academy), a hopeful music composer who gets a shot at DJing for the local disco. His friend Samantha (Valerie Perrine, Superman), a model in the ‘70s who retired at the top, is impressed with his music and resolves to help him build a music group. Since Samantha can spot talent at the drop of a hat, it’s not long before she’s enlisting another friend, Felipe, who dresses in Indigenous tribal gear, as well as a construction worker and a cowboy to begin belting out the hits.

Of course the group eventually grows to include a cop, a G.I., and a biker, because that’s just how bands were formed in the ‘70s.

And then Ron (Caitlyn Jenner, The 1976 Summer Olympics on ABC) shows up to act as a love interest for Samantha, and prove that winning a gold medal does not grant one even a single iota of acting ability. Seriously, Jenner is completely lost in this flick, looking alternately dazed and confused, and I would say that their performance was the low-water mark of the entire cast but that would be letting Gutenberg off too easy. Because if Jenner is understandably bewildered throughout Can’t Stop the Music, Gutenberg is positively manic. He’s in constant motion, racing through his lines with wild eyes and then dashing into the next scene like he’s in a sprint to get through the movie as fast as he can.

Granted, Gutenberg may have had the right idea.

As mentioned above, director Nancy Walker had never directed a feature film before. At the time, she was best known as a television actress, and was a regular on the Mary Tyler Moore Show and the spin-off Rhoda, playing Rhoda’s mother. She had a background on Broadway and in MGM musicals, and did direct some television shows. Walker was certainly a Hollywood veteran, but none of that explains why she was given the reins to a big-budget feature, especially a movie that, Perrine aside, was filled with novice talent in front of the camera as well.

Walker’s not the only problem here, of course. There was simply no way a movie about disco was going to have any traction in 1980, no matter who was directing. You honestly have to see Can’t Stop the Music to understand what a train wreck it really is. Characters pop up with random abandon, one scene rolls into the next, and musical numbers blast onto the screen with little warning. And it’s all very shiny and sparkly.

Can’t Stop the Music is an undeniably bad movie whose only merit is that it really doesn’t care what you think, it’s going to have a good time anyway. It’s going to sing and dance and try to convince you that disco is going to be huge in the ‘80s. Huge! And there’s no way around it, because you just cant stop the music!

Unless you find the power button on your TV remote. Turns out the music can be stopped after all.

*Within Justin’s line of sight. He’s intent on staring me down until I review the Vice Academy sequel trilogy.

Intermission!

• Olivia Newton-John was up for the role of Samantha, but opted to do Xanadu instead. Kind of a lateral career move.
• This movie opens with Gutenberg rollerskating through New York City. That tells you everything you need to know about what’s coming up.
• “Neighborly New York” sounds completely unlike every description of NYC I’ve ever heard.
• Caitlyn Jenner randomly shows up and gets mugged by an old lady. Not so neighborly now, is it?
• There’s a surprising amount of male nudity during the YMCA segment. And also a topless Valerie Perrine who seemingly goes unnoticed by everyone around her.
• Why is this movie still going? Isn’t disco dead yet?
• Now there’s a song celebrating milk. We’re hitting the bottom of the barrel here.
• Blackie Lawless sighting. That was weird.
• Yeah, this is not going to be the sound of the ‘80s. Trust me, I was there.
• All these actresses in their 50’s start showing up. I think Nancy Walker invited her bridge club to be in the movie.
• The only good musical out of this era was Rock & Roll High School.