In less assured hands, this could have wound up as a disaster, but director Edouard Molinaro was skillfully able to film the long-running play and wring every drop of humor from it. Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) and Albin (Michel Serrault) have been lovers for more than 20 years. Albin is the
lead "drag queen" of La Cage aux Folles, a Saint-Tropez nightclub, and Renato, the more masculine of the two, runs the day-to-day operations of the boite. Many years before, Renato stepped out of his gay lifestyle long enough to father Laurent (Remi Laurent) in a one-night stand, and since then
both men have raised the boy. Now, Laurent comes home from college with the news that he is engaged to Andrea (Luisa Maneri), whose father, Charrier (Michel Galabru), is the secretary of the blue-nosed Union of Moral Order. As a result, Laurent has lied about his parentage and told his future
father-in-law that his father is a cultural attache. From this set-up alone, one can guess that the situations that follow--revolving around Charrier's meeting with Renato--lead to some riotous results. Despite the apparent risk of making a movie with two gay leads, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES is basically
an old-fashioned bedroom farce--and tamer than most, at that. Nonetheless, it was a huge international hit, spawning a pair of dreadful sequels and a fabulously successful stage musical.
