The Boyfriend

A unique and energetic tribute to the Broadway musicals of Busby Berkeley. Simultaneously stunning and rough, the visual style is hard to describe but undeniably entrancing along with the great performances.

What a delightful movie!

Couldn't take my eyes off this film.

Russell's send-up to early 30s Busby Berkeley style musicals shares some of the flaws of those films (a very underdeveloped plot) but also shares their strengths (elaborate, over the top, very fun musical numbers.) The whole film is basically an excuse to stage these, and they're consistently inventive, colorful, impeccably produced, and fun. Some are clearly based on classic scenes from Berkeley musicals and some are not. Probably overlong, but an interesting, often impressive experiment.

Faced with adapting Sandy Wilson's very broad 1920's pastiche "The Boy Friend", Russell turns it into the fairly inept show-within-the-show here, and pivots to make a Busby Berkley-style 1930's backstage musical. He uses fantasy sequences to stage increasingly larger and more outrageous production numbers. It's a great idea and I love the result.

Viewed February 20, 2020.

I had taken a few too many pills for something this long. But what I remember I did really enjoy.

The 60s and 70s destroyed cinema. Thanks Ken.

Ken Russell doing Busby Berkley is pretty much exactly the gaudy, garish, phantasmagorical fever dream/nightmare that you would expect from one idiosyncratic camp iconoclast paying tribute to another. Truth be told, almost two and a half hours of such relentless over-the-top kitschy spectacle does threaten to get a bit exhausting, but it's also downright impressive just how much Russell manages to keep the momentum going for that long.

Condenses everything wonderful about the films of the 1930s with a great touch of comedy and a boatload of visual imagination. Fucking great, great movie.

Take that Busby Berkley! Apesar de achar mais longo do que deveria, Russel aqui fez o filme que considerou o mais difícil, mas cujo resultado geral é brilhante, a concatenação entre a visão teatral de um musical com a de um diretor cinematográfico é feita às mil maravilhas. Box Ken Russell Obras-primas do Cinema

Not really my cup of blood, but it's quite good taken on its' own terms.