La Cage aux Folles II

La Cage aux Folles II

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Édouard Molinaro
Produced by Marcello Danon
Written by Jean Poiret
Francis Veber
Marcello Danon
Story by Jean Poiret
Francis Veber (Dialogue)
Based on Characters 
by Jean Poiret
Starring Michel Serrault
Ugo Tognazzi
Marcel Bozzuffi
Music by Ennio Morricone
Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi
Edited by Monique Isnardon
Robert Isnardon
Production
company
Da Ma Produzione
Les Productions Artistes Associés
Distributed by United Artists
Release dates
  • 10 December 1980 (France)
  • 15 February 1981 (United States)
Running time
101 minutes
Country France
Italy
Language French
Box office $10,989,331

La Cage aux Folles II is a 1980 comedy film and the sequel to 1979's La Cage aux Folles. It is directed by Édouard Molinaro and stars Michel Serrault as Albin, (stage name ZaZa), the female impersonator star of a gay night-club revue, and Ugo Tognazzi as Renato, his partner of over twenty years.

Plot

A spy plants a capsule of microfilm on Albin and from then on spies and government agents pursue him. Albin and Renato travel to Italy to hide at Renato's mother's farm. At each point along the way we see the straight world's reaction to Albin.

Cast

Critical response

The film was favorably reviewed by the critic Pauline Kael in The New Yorker: " La Cage aux Folles II has nothing to do with the art of movies, but it has a great deal to do with the craft and art of acting, and the pleasures of farce. Serrault gives a superb comic performance - his Albin is a wildly fanciful creation. There's a grandeur about Albin's inability to see himself as he is. And maybe its only in this exaggerated form that a movie about the ridiculousness and the tenderness of married love can be widely accepted now. At the end, after Albin has been kidnapped by the spies, Renato, who is nearby with the police, can't think of anything but his beloved Albin. And, suddenly, forgetting the danger, each starts running toward the other, and they meet between the two armed groups like lovers in an opera. One of the policemen watching their embrace is weeping. "It's beautiful," he says." [1]

References

  1. Pauline Kael, Taking It All In, p.167 ISBN 0-7145-2841-2

External links