THE RITZ [1976] [Warner Archive Collection] [DVD] [USA Release]
The Funny Season Begins When You Check in For a Night at The Ritz!
Rates are low, décor is rococo art deco and the clientele is...convivial.
As a Cleveland sanitation company owner reasons, this New York all-male bathhouse is ideal for hiding from his murderous brother-in-law. But what this new arrival and his fellow patrons get is an exercise in manic mayhem from director Richard Lester, bringing Terrence McNally’s hit Broadway farce to spicy screen life.
Adding more spice are five cast members of the stage original: Jack Weston, Jerry Stiller, F. Murray Abraham, Paul B. Price and especially Rita Moreno as clueless Googie Gomez, the role for which she captured with a Tony Award. Kaye Ballard and Treat Williams add to the tasty guest list.
Check into The Ritz. You’ve got roomfuls of laughter to check out.
FILM FACT: Awards and Nominations: 1977 Golden Globes: Nominated: Best Motion Picture in a Comedy or Musical. Nominated: Best Actor in a Motion Picture in a Comedy or Musical for Jack Weston. Nominated: Best Actress in a Motion Picture in a Comedy or Musical for Rita Moreno. 1997 BAFTA Film Awards: Nominated: Best Actress for Rita Moreno. 1977 Writers Guild of America: Nominated: WGA Award (Screen) for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium for Terrence McNally.
Cast: Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, Kaye Ballard, F. Murray Abraham, Paul B. Price, Treat Williams, John Everson, Christopher J. Brown, Dave King, Bessie Love, Tony De Santis, Ben Aris, Peter Butterworth, Ronnie Brody, John Ratzenberger, Hal Galili, George Coulouris, Leon Greene, Freddie Earlle, Hugh Fraser, Bart Allison, Samantha Weysom, Richard Holmes, Laurie Goode (uncredited) and Nicholas Mele (uncredited)
Director: Richard Lester
Producer: Denis O'Dell
Screenplay: Terrence McNally (screenplay/based upon the play)
Composer: Ken Thorne
Cinematography: Paul Wilson (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080i (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
Audio: English: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
Subtitles: English SDH and French
Running Time: 90 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Warner Archive Collection
Andrew’s DVD Review: ‘THE RITZ’ [1976] I suspect lots of folks have been waiting for this camp farce film to come out of the vaults (closet?). Richard Lester’s 1976 film adaptation of Terrence McNally’s stage play, but to be much more accurate, “The Ritz” started life at Yale Repertory Theatre in 1974 after playwright-in-residence at Yale University McNally wrote a play titled The Tubs, slang for the baths.
‘THE RITZ’ film is about assorted mistaken identities and hang-ups in a New York gay steam bath that was a hit on Broadway with the racy, screwball comedy “The Ritz” and the show starred Jack Weston as a Cleveland garbage man who married into a very Italian family, and with the patriarch’s final words being “Get Proclo,” a hit was put on the unsuspecting spouse. As to the film ‘THE RITZ’ it always makes me laugh out loud, no matter how many times I have seen the film, as it is like a typical British farce that was filmed at England's Twickenham Studios in 25 days and director Richard Lester gleefully and adroitly re-creates all the malevolent fun, and the lead performers pull out all the stops, as do the whole cast ensemble.
As to the film ‘THE RITZ’ itself, here we find Gaetano Proclo [Jack Weston] plays an unsuspecting New York City [heterosexual] businessman who is on the run from the mob and especially his homicidal brother-in-law Carmine Vespucci, a mobster. To save his life, Gaetano Proclo hops in a cab and tells the driver to take him to the last place anyone would think to look for him, and he ends up at The Ritz. No this is not a hotel, but a gay bath house, and is one place for people who seeks an asylum and in what Jack Weston figures will be the last place on earth that the hit men would think of searching for him, especially in a gay bath house. And yes, from there on hilarity comedy ensues.
The cast includes F. Murray Abraham, Jerry Stiller, Kaye Ballard, and Treat Williams as a private detective with a very interesting speaking voice. They are all excellent, but they are all ultimately upstaged by Rita Moreno as Googie Gomez, a cheesy lounge act character. I have learned from past experiences to be sure not to be sipping a beverage or munching a snack when Googie Gomez launches into her interpretation of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” it is hilarity comedy from start to finish.
The story kicks into gear in the last third of the film when Gaetano Proclo’s brother-in-law Carmine Vespucci [Jerry Stiller] gets into the bath house and the old mistaken identity twist comes into play while characters try hiding out in various locations. It may not be roll-on-the-floor hilarity, but there are some genuinely funny moments and especially with further complications that arise when Gaetano Proclo’s wife Vivian Proclo [Kaye Ballard] tracks him down and jumps to the wrong conclusions about his sexual orientation.
Watching it today, however, one wonders if this film could ever have been made in today’s climate era without offending the LGBT community or setting LGBT rights back 50 years and not to mention the effect of AIDS on lives, but on the bath house industry as well. Most of the characters in the bath house, thankfully, seem rather benign as they lounge around the pool and especially we never see what goes on in the steam room, but would the overly queeny Chris and chubby chaser Claude be accepted as viable characters in a film set today? Would Googie Gomez offend the Hispanic community with her comically thick “Joo don wanna mess wit Googie!” accent?
The film ‘THE RITZ,’ unsurprisingly, was a total disaster because how do you sell a comedy about a gay bath house in New York to audiences especially in middle America? The previous DVD release went out of print at the retail level, but the folks at the Warner Archive Collection have rescued it from obscurity once again, apparently using the same master as for the last retail DVD release.
Obviously, it is a period piece, very much a thing of its time, and some might greatly disapprove of the film, especially with modern audiences, finding it objectionable rather than slapstick fun. Quite a few critics judged it as lame and oppressive back then. But, if you want to get back into the snappy, inventive spirit of the time, because it is very funny, sometimes some standout hilarious stuff, knocked out of the park by brilliant cast ensemble that I know will gladden the heart seeing this wonderful 1976 film once again that Warner Archive Collection felt justified in releasing the DVD once again to a modern audience, so enjoy all the hilarious fun that runs throughout the film.
THE RITZ MUSIC TRACK LIST
THE THREE CABALLEROS (uncredited) (Music by Manuel Esperón) (English lyrics by Ray Gilbert) [Performed by The Andrews Sisters]
EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSES (uncredited) (Music by Jule Styne) (Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim) [Performed by Rita Moreno]
LADY OF SPAIN (uncredited) (Written by Tolchard Evans)
LIFE IS JUST A BOWL OF CHERRIES (uncredited) (Music by Ray Henderson) (Lyrics by Buddy G. DeSylva and Lew Brown)
DVD Image Quality – Warner Archive Collection presents the film ‘THE RITZ’ in an anamorphic 1.85:1 aspect ratio and for a DVD, the image quality is very acceptable, and very clean. The colours are rich especially for the inertia studio shot scenes in the film, making it look very glamorous establishment and one I would like to visit for its wonderful rococo art deco and when the lights are all turned on, the place really lights up and shows off the wonderful luxurious rococo art deco that is really splendid and all the people who worked on the scenery should of got an award. So for the Warner Archive Collection DVD, they did a really sterling job on the image presentation.
DVD Audio Quality – Warner Archive Collection brings us the film ‘THE RITZ’ with just one standard 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio that does the job well for this DVD. Dialogue is really good and you can hear all the words spoken by the actors, but when it came to the actress Rita Moreno with her over the top Latin accent, sometimes I had a job understanding what was said, but did a great job when she launches into her interpretation of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and is so OTT and totally brilliant. The music content of the film is also very audible and well presented. So overall, Warner Archive Collection did a really good job, especially for the DVD format.
DVD Special Features and Extras:
Theatrical Trailer [1976] [480i] [1.78:1] [2:16] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘THE RITZ.’ Sadly the image quality is low resolution and such a shame it is not the same quality as the film.
Finally, ‘THE RITZ’ is of a different time in history, but what was funny in 1976 is to my mind still very funny today or to say a modern audience the might be judged as just very offensive, still that is up to you to personally to decide? There are parts of it that I found to be very funny, and I thought the performances were all top-notch, but director Richard Lester to some critics felt he just was not able to bring that same screwball sensibility to it like director Peter Bogdanovich did in the 1972 film ‘What’s Up, Doc?’ The film ‘THE RITZ’ is a curiosity, and maybe even a record of the original Broadway show that would otherwise does not exist, so it’s good that the people at Warner Archive Collection has made it available once again on DVD format. It’s certainly not a film for everyone, but definitely a particular target audience and may find it to be a reminder of a particular period of time in the 1970s with added fun and frolics throughout the film and again it is up to you to decide if what I have said you agree with me and of course the jury is out at this moment in time. But one gratification about the film is near the end, when someone gets their comeuppance, especially when a very dark secret is revealed, and you say to yourself, yes this is how a film of this calibre should be. Also it was great to see the comedy actress Kaye Ballard in the film, but near the end of the film it was shame this actress could not of had more scenes with her in it. But of course to have a film of this calibre and total comedy hilarity, you need a director that can hold it all together and that of course was by the superb Richard Lester, who of course has made films like ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ ‘The Three Musketeers,’ ‘The Four Musketeers,’ ‘The Knack,’ ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,’ ‘CUBA,’ ‘The Mouse In The Moon’ and ‘The Beatles: You Can't Do That: The Making of A Hard Day's Night’ which is just the tip of the iceberg and so of course was so ideal to direct the film ‘THE RITZ’ because of its touch of British comedy farce value to add of course the mixture of madcap humour. Anyway, ever since I saw the film for the first time, I was eager to own it for real and now it has finally been given the DVD release I seek, and it is so gratifying I now have it in my DVD collection. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
