Can’t Stop the Music (1980) – Review

In what can best be described as a glitter-smeared trainwreck, Can’t Stop the Music tried to ride the disco wave just as it was collapsing into a rhinestone-studded sinkhole. It’s a musical fantasy loosely inspired by the formation of the Village People, and more accurately, a monument to what happens when camp, chaos, and coke-fueled optimism collide on screen with no brakes. This is a disco fever dream that proves you can stop the music, and maybe should have.

If there were ever a film that defined the phrase “so bad it’s good,” Can’t Stop the Music would be leading the conga line. The film tells a fictionalized origin story of the Village People, and it begins in New York City, the only logical setting for a movie where a struggling composer named Jack Morell (Steve Guttenberg) dreams of making it big in the music industry. Jack has beats in his heart, polyester in his soul, and a synthesizer in his kitchen. He just needs the right voices—and an outlet with more than just a fondue pot and a dream. Enter Samantha Simpson (Valerie Perrine), a high-powered former model turned record executive turned… Jack’s friend and business cheerleader?

“What do you mean, I’m not the film’s love interest?”

Samantha believes in Jack’s talent and takes it upon herself to help him find singers and secure a record deal. She also just casually has the connections to do it, including a few with ties to the fashion elite and record execs because, of course, she does. And somehow, she manages to run into every type of performer imaginable, who all seem to be wandering around Greenwich Village. Enter Ron White (played by Olympic gold medallist Caitlyn Jenner, then Bruce Jenner), a straight-laced tax lawyer from St. Louis who is just trying to understand what the heck is going on. His transformation from square to sparkle is… dramatic.

To be fair, Jenner is all about transformations.

Ron gets swept into Samantha’s madcap plan to promote Jack’s music and helps wrangle what eventually becomes the Village People: a cowboy, a construction worker, a cop, a Native American, a soldier, and a leatherman. These six archetypes appear one by one, as if the movie is assembling the disco Avengers. This newly formed group sets out to get a record deal, but they’re blocked by industry snobs, shady managers, and the challenges of managing six very different personalities, leading to such highlights as a completely bonkers “YMCA” number that turns into a full musical within a fitness centre, complete with fountains, synchronized towel twirling and a little psychedelic.

Burn off calories and brain cells.

Amid the chaos, Jack continues pushing his music, and Sam fights to keep the group together. After various near-misses and misunderstandings, the group finally lands a performance in San Francisco for a major live concert event. This culminates in a glittering, over-the-top finale where the Village People perform the title song, “Can’t Stop the Music,” to a screaming, disco-hungry audience. Everyone gets their big moment in the spotlight, and the message is clear: you can try to shut down disco, but you can’t stop the music, no matter how hard you try.

Couldn’t they have prayed a little harder?

Stray Observations:

• For some reason, roller skating became synonymous with disco, with both fads hitting their peak in the 70s but vanishing as quickly in the 80s. However, rollerblades have managed to keep their pastime alive. Sadly, disco never got a streamlined version.
• The lead role was originally offered to Olivia Newton-John, who turned it down to do Xanadu. I’d say she dodged a bullet, but I’ve seen Xanadu.
• The Village People barely act. They mostly show up in various fabulous outfits, say a few lines, and perform. They’re like Pokémon in bell-bottoms, summoned when the script demands a dance break.
• Despite being about the Village People, the movie never explicitly acknowledges any of the group’s subversive queer appeal. It’s like someone invited you to a Pride parade and then claimed it was just a “colourful fitness expo.”
• It was this film, playing on a 99-cent double bill with Xanadu, that inspired John Wilson to create the Golden Raspberry Awards in 1980.
• With a budget of around $13.5 million, the film was considered one of the most expensive musicals ever made upon release. I’d love to know where the money went. It was cocaine, wasn’t it?

I wonder what the glitter and sequin budget was?

Directed by Nancy Walker – then best known as a sitcom actress – this was her directorial debut, that it was also her one and only time directing a feature film is no surprise, but it can’t all be blamed on her. When this film hit theatres in 1980, disco was already on life support by this time. While the genre had dominated the late ’70s, it was by this point being culturally dismantled by backlash, mockery, and even outright hostility, embodied most famously in 1979’s “Disco Demolition Night” in Chicago. Into this increasingly hostile environment came Can’t Stop the Music, a glitter-bomb of a film that attempted to celebrate disco at its most flamboyant, centring around the real-life pop phenomenon of the Village People. A movie full of bizarre choices and truly baffling moments.

Their version of “Danny Boy” will leave you questioning reality.

The script by Allan Carr and Bronté Woodard was less a cohesive story and more a kaleidoscope of camp spectacle, with over-the-top musical sequences, ranging from Broadway-style showtunes to full-blown disco extravaganzas featuring spandex, glitter, and synchronized choreography that defy logic and taste in equal measure. “Milkshake,” “Y.M.C.A.,” and the title track are each given extended set pieces that feel like music videos stretched to absurd lengths. These numbers themselves are both the film’s raison d’être and its most outrageous crimes. Lavishly produced and drenched in sequins and absurdity, the songs go on forever, with choreography that’s half high-school musical, half Studio 54 fever dream.

Note: The “Milkshake” number was literally sponsored by the American Dairy Association. This over-the-top dance sequence wasn’t satire, it was actual product placement. Somewhere in an office, dairy executives approved that glittery, shirtless choreography was the way to go.

The film seems caught between being a traditional MGM-style musical and a surreal disco fantasy. The editing is haphazard, the pacing sluggish, and the dialogue deeply awkward. The acting is frequently amateurish, with Jenner’s performance standing out as particularly stiff. Even the camera work often feels more like a TV special than a big-screen production. The entire thing plays like an unintentional parody, which would be forgivable if it didn’t run for a bloated two hours. Worse, it commits the ultimate musical sin: it’s boring between the insanity. The dialogue is flat, the humour is awkward, and the whole thing feels like it was edited with a disco ball instead of a blade.

Cinema took some wild turns in the 80s.

Yet, despite (or perhaps because of) these flaws, the film radiates a kind of sincere naivety. It’s trying so hard to entertain—to be big, bold, happy, and inclusive—that it can’t help but win some affection from audiences who appreciate camp or kitsch. It is a fascinating contradiction: at once a corporate product of disco commodification and an unintentional celebration of queer culture and joyful excess. And let’s be clear: if you enjoy camp, spectacle, or roller disco, Can’t Stop the Music has some treats for you as the musical numbers are truly jaw-dropping—not because they’re great, but because someone thought…

“Yes, this should absolutely be in a movie.”

In conclusion, Can’t Stop the Music is a fascinating cinematic artifact: a movie made with confidence in a cultural trend that had already passed. It is overlong, underwritten, and often incoherent, but it is also sincere, colourful, and defiantly committed to its vision. As a piece of filmmaking, it is undeniably bad. As a window into the extravagant optimism and theatrical absurdity of late-’70s pop culture, it is priceless.