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When the world at large is a Mafia funeral, sanctuary means the merry Sodom on a Manhattan corner. "It gets pretty wild in there." Papa's dying wish puts a hit on the garbage honcho (Jack Weston), the last place his brother-in-law (Jerry Stiller) would look is the maze of cubicles and saunas in a gay bathhouse. The old war colleague (Paul B. Price) is now a dedicated chubby-chaser, he spots the portly fugitive in the Art Deco lobby and the fountain behind him spurts with lyrical desire. "Crisco oil party. Room 419. Pass it on." The trenchcoated cool of the private dick (Treat Williams) crumbles as soon as his falsetto mouth opens, the randy radar of the practiced swish (F. Murray Abraham) mixes up queens and hit men. Above all is the chanteuse (Rita Moreno) with more nerve than talent, who mistakes the chump for a Broadway producer just as he mistakes her for a drag act. "I always wondered what you straight guys did together." Terrence McNally's pirouette on Some Like It Hot, queer camp and Mediterranean machismo as polar opposites meeting in black and crimson corridors, engineered by Richard Lester as a pressured funhouse. Doors slam and walls tumble, the steam room is next to the disco floor and an Andrew Sisters routine brings down the house at the talent show. (A double-bill of All About Eve and A Star Is Born is announced on the loudspeaker.) Moreno's pronunciation of "laryngitis," Murray's gangling torso bending this way and that, rare joys in a flaming New York patiently recreated in a London studio. "Just a phase. Last year, it was miniature golf." The filming is of particular interest to Nichols (The Birdcage) and Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut). With Kaye Ballard, John Everson, Christopher J. Brown, Dave King, Bessie Love, George Coulouris, and John Ratzenberger.
--- Fernando F. Croce |