The Boy Friend (1971)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

That was an excellent one.

An absolute waste of money

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I could be happy with this as the representation of the fluffy 1954 Broadway musical which introduced Julie Andrews to American audiences long before Eliza Doolittle, Cinderella, Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp. She didn't get to play in the film versions of "My Fair Lady" or "Camelot" (made before this) and was probably too old to take on the role in the 1971 Ken Russell adaption of that Sandy Wilson musical. Flops like "Star!" and "Darling Lily" also made her feel like Box Office poison, so Russell instead chose the aptly named "Twiggy" to play the role of the innocent Polly who finds romance amongst the more worldly classmates of a girl's school.This is performed as a "show within a show", and like "42nd Street", the understudy goes on for the star. Twiggy seems as far removed from the wheel-chair star who sits off stage rooting for her, and to cast that part, Russell cleverly made up his regular leading lady Glenda Jackson to play that part, albeit unbilled. Like Polly in the show-within-the-show, Twiggy falls in love with the leading man much to the consternation of the jealous chorus girls, and this leads to some fantasy sequences that take the stage-bound songs and open them up into huge Busby Berkley like spectacles.Max Adrian and Moyra Fraser are amusing as the older couple representing the character comics who play the staff of the private school, and Georgina Hale and Sally Bryant are fun as the rivals. Christopher Gable is the juvenile and does his best to add what he can to an otherwise dull part. Rising Broadway dancer Tommy Tune is most visible and is instantly recognizable in the "Won't You Charleston With Me?" number. While this certainly ranks as one of the oddest transfers to the screen of a Broadway musical, the fantasy sequences are so beautiful to look at that you won't soon forget it. Nostalgia had taken over Broadway in the early 70's, making this an appropriate film for its time, and that nostalgia still cries out today for even the younger generation to cry out for a more innocent time.

THE BOY FRIEND is simultaneously a parody of, and a tribute to, the musicals of the thirties. When the star of a cheesy English musical hall play is injured, the assistant stage manager, Polly Browne, has to take her place. And of course, the great Hollywood director Cedil B. de Thrill is in the audience talent scouting, Polly is in love with the male lead (something everyone but him knows), the musical's director is rewriting the show as he goes, and one of the cast is intent on sabotaging everyone else to get noticed by de Thrill.Periodically, we get brilliantly done big stage numbers based on the great 1930s screen musicals of Busby Berkeley, all done absolutely perfectly.The cast is marvelous. Whether playing it straight or deliberately overacting every note is perfect.For lovers of musicals, this is a must.

Interesting how the user reviews have shifted from the first entries which mostly HATE this film through to the current ones which mostly seem to LOVE it. That's some kind of cultural progress and sophistication at least.... Personally it's one of my favorite Russell films and I especially love the brilliant orchestrations by Peter Maxwell Davies. BOYFRIEND will reportedly be screened in Sept. by the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. Russell has been in LA over the past month and I recently saw him at a screening of WOMEN IN LOVE and THE MUSIC LOVERS at the Aero in Santa Monica. Richard Chamberlain was also at the MUSIC LOVERS screening. So can't wait to see THE BOYFRIEND on the big WIDE screen again at last. I seem to remember that at the original first-run screening in NYC the fantasy sequences were all in stereo. Hope they manage to get that print at the Cinematheque.

Ken Russell got the rights to an insignificant stage musical and respun it into this bizarre curio. He made it a show within a show, about a bunch of rotten actors over-performing "The Boyfriend" to a mogul who watches from the audience. It's atrocious, but it's like nothing you've ever seen before, having the same "what the hell is this?" quality of most of Russells work. It's hideously overproduced (with a wink) as a tribute to Busby Berkely. (Don't ask.) There are knowing goofs throughout, like taking the absurdly tall Tommy Tune and putting him in vertical stripes and a stovepipe hat - hysterical. It's nutritionally empty but what do you want... a straight version of the play had no better hopes.I have seen this exactly once on late night TV in the early 80s. And that's precisely its merit - a movie you would have been grateful to stumble across late at night. Although it was reviled at the time, I definitely remember laughing a lot. Where's the DVD?