the audience applauded

Powerful

Overrated and overhyped

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

For once, it seems, Russell tones down the sexuality and violence and makes an ode to musicals and the theater. It is still full of his indulgences, Felliniesque numbers that go on and on. That's my problem with the film, too long. Cut it by a half hour or more. It's so obvious our heroine is going to make good by the end that there's no suspense or real drama. Too many characters who are mostly back stabbing jerks. Twiggy and Tommy Tune come off well.

Let me start by saying I love the sets and costumes for this show. I don't know how many backdrops they created but they are works of art. And Twiggy looks darling and perfectly turned out as a 1920's musical heroine.The music is poor. It all sounds the same, it goes on and on and it's dreary. Here's how I confirmed this to myself. I was just wandering through my living room with the TV on listening. All of a sudden my ears were pleased by the sounds of some real music. The band had just started "You Are My Lucky Star" which is a real 20's tune written by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. By comparison to other 20's tunes "You Are My Lucky Star" may just be average but compared to anything in "The Boyfriend" it is a radiant hit. My advice to anyone wanting to stage this in an amateur production: study the sets and costumes. Throw out the story and music.

In late 1920s London, unsteady "A.S.M." (that's "assistant stage manager") Twiggy (as Polly Browne) takes over the leading role in a sparsely attended stage musical called "The Boyfriend" after star Glenda Jackson (as Rita) breaks a leg. Literally. Twiggy performs badly on stage and fantasizes the production is more elaborate. She has a crush on handsome leading dancer Christopher Gable (as Tony Brockhurst), who notices Twiggy is beautiful when she removes her glasses. An observer named like filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille (Mr. De Thrill) watches the play, apparently looking for Hollywood talent...There are four or more movies here - the original stage musical, which is drowned out by producer/director Ken Russell, and replaced by your amateur musical, where some appealing people and songs test some sit-through-it endurance, then we have the backstage character stories, headed by the love story between Twiggy and Mr. Gable, all mixed like oil and vinegar into extravagant "Busby Berkeley" production numbers, of which the latter "I Could Be Happy with You" is a highlight, but in the version just before the intermission; like much of the film, it reappears until finally wearing out the welcome...**** The Boy Friend (12/16/71) Ken Russell ~ Twiggy, Christopher Gable, Tommy Tune, Antonia Ellis

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?