That was an excellent one.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I could be happy with this as the representation of the fluffy 1954 Broadway musical which introduced Julie Andrews to American audiences long before Eliza Doolittle, Cinderella, Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp. She didn't get to play in the film versions of "My Fair Lady" or "Camelot" (made before this) and was probably too old to take on the role in the 1971 Ken Russell adaption of that Sandy Wilson musical. Flops like "Star!" and "Darling Lily" also made her feel like Box Office poison, so Russell instead chose the aptly named "Twiggy" to play the role of the innocent Polly who finds romance amongst the more worldly classmates of a girl's school.This is performed as a "show within a show", and like "42nd Street", the understudy goes on for the star. Twiggy seems as far removed from the wheel-chair star who sits off stage rooting for her, and to cast that part, Russell cleverly made up his regular leading lady Glenda Jackson to play that part, albeit unbilled. Like Polly in the show-within-the-show, Twiggy falls in love with the leading man much to the consternation of the jealous chorus girls, and this leads to some fantasy sequences that take the stage-bound songs and open them up into huge Busby Berkley like spectacles.Max Adrian and Moyra Fraser are amusing as the older couple representing the character comics who play the staff of the private school, and Georgina Hale and Sally Bryant are fun as the rivals. Christopher Gable is the juvenile and does his best to add what he can to an otherwise dull part. Rising Broadway dancer Tommy Tune is most visible and is instantly recognizable in the "Won't You Charleston With Me?" number. While this certainly ranks as one of the oddest transfers to the screen of a Broadway musical, the fantasy sequences are so beautiful to look at that you won't soon forget it. Nostalgia had taken over Broadway in the early 70's, making this an appropriate film for its time, and that nostalgia still cries out today for even the younger generation to cry out for a more innocent time.

This Ken Russell exercise in excess actually works in this extreme version of Sandy Wilson's 1920s-style musical with its delightful pastiche songs and the addition of several standards. The most important thing about the DVD is that the original 136-minute length has been restored. The 1971 release in the States ran only 109 minutes, so if you remember the original, you're in for a special treat in seeing all the cut numbers and scenes as if they were new.The movie is a show within a show, with a plot taken from "Forty-Second Street" and married to the stylized Sandy Wilson show, with some fantasy Busby Berkeley-style numbers thrown in for good measure. The ensemble cast is delightful, especially Twiggy, Christopher Gable, Tommy Tune, and the incomparable Glenda Jackson. Ken Russell also makes use of some of his regular stable of actors, including Gable and Jackson, already mentioned, as well Murray Melvin and Georgina Hale. The sets are wonderfully creative, as are the 1920s costumes designed by Ken Russell's wife Shirley.

When I first saw "The Boyfriend" at Kogarah Cinema I didn't realise that the 30s were enjoying a revival - I only knew I loved old movies (a legacy from my mother) and hero worshipped Twiggy!! To skinny schoolgirls the world over, Twiggy was a revelation. Before she appeared on the scene models were slim but curvy but when you heard her talk in interviews she sounded just like she lived down the street - not in some posh suburb with the arty and the elite!! So when I read that she was making a musical set in the early thirties with what looked like some fabulous dance sequences I was thrilled. The big controversy at the time was the director, Ken Russell, who was better known for some bizarre and strictly R rated films ("The Devils", "Women in Love"). I hoped he would do the right thing by Twiggy and he did.In a similar way to "Pennies From Heaven" the musical fantasy sequences in "The Boyfriend" were in stark contrast to the reality of the seedy, second rate show, where the once great Percy and Moyra Parkhill (Bryan Pringle and Moyra Fraser) rubbed shoulders with the up and coming Tony and Tommy (Christopher Gable and Tommy Tune). Polly (Twiggy) is the assistant stage manager and general dogsbody for a ramshackle theatre troupe who are staging "The Boyfriend" at the Theatre Royale, a majestic theatre fallen on hard times. One particular day...the star doesn't turn up... the hospital rings to say she's broken her leg...sound familiar??? To top it all there is a talent scout, a Mr. DeThrill, from Hollywood, in the audience, but before panic sets in the wonderful Barbara Windsor appears as Madame Dubonnet ("Do-Bon-Nay") to take the "young ladies" through their steps in "Perfect Young Ladies".For the next number "The Boyfriend" Polly is literally pushed onto the stage (as everybody's understudy she now has the star part!!) and is completely confused but wins a gold star for sincerity - it helps heaps that she has a huge crush on Tony. Stage manager Max (Max Adrian) has his own dreams about the number's staging and sees Polly as the spirit of ecstasy!! Tommy and Tony are the only talented performers in the troupe. Tommy, as an orphan had played on Broadway as Tiny Tom, the dancing kid but when he grew (at 6'6", Tommy Tune is apparently the tallest dancer in the country) he found himself in Britain, a victim of amnesia, only remembering how to dance. He had been taught a complicated time step by his father and it is inserted into the finale with surprising results.The songs keep coming - when vicious Maisie, ever on the lookout to impress Mr. DeThrill, convinces Tommy she has a bad headache and won't be able to dance her best in their number "Won't You Charleston With Me", Tommy just goes through the motions - but not Maisie - she lied of course!! Twiggy gets to sing two standards - "My Lucky Star" and "All I Do is Dream of You" - sure her voice is thin and untrained but she is playing an understudy, someone who is not supposed to be a top singer. Glenda Jackson makes a cameo appearance as Rita Marlowe, complete with crutches, in a scene lifted from "42nd Street", including the old "Go out there and be so good, you'll make me hate you"!!! "I Could Be Happy With You" gets the full Busby Berkeley treatment with dancing and kaleidoscopic formations on a giant turntable and ends up ala the "Young and Healthy" number from "42nd Street". The surreal "A Room in Bloomsbury" with its Fred and Ginger beginning, ending in a novelty dance with fairies and elves!!There are almost too many songs to mention, some work - like the riotous "It's Never Too Late to Fall in Love" sung by the glamorous Georgina Hale as a very amorous nurse and Max Adrian as an annoyed invalid who wanted this to be his big song!! When I first saw the movie at the cinema, some numbers were omitted, an extended ballet sequence, obviously to highlight the versatility of ballet dancer Christopher Gable, a fantasy dance between nurses and men in bath chairs and "It's Nicer in Nice" performed by Barbara Windsor. The movie would have been better and tighter if they had stayed out - as it was those sequences really dragged out what is already a long movie. But you can't find fault with Twiggy - her dancing is marvelous and she fitted into the early 30s era so brilliantly, it was also nice to see people who could actually dance (Gable and Tune) instead of the drek that passes for dancing now.

Interesting how the user reviews have shifted from the first entries which mostly HATE this film through to the current ones which mostly seem to LOVE it. That's some kind of cultural progress and sophistication at least.... Personally it's one of my favorite Russell films and I especially love the brilliant orchestrations by Peter Maxwell Davies. BOYFRIEND will reportedly be screened in Sept. by the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. Russell has been in LA over the past month and I recently saw him at a screening of WOMEN IN LOVE and THE MUSIC LOVERS at the Aero in Santa Monica. Richard Chamberlain was also at the MUSIC LOVERS screening. So can't wait to see THE BOYFRIEND on the big WIDE screen again at last. I seem to remember that at the original first-run screening in NYC the fantasy sequences were all in stereo. Hope they manage to get that print at the Cinematheque.