SimonJack There are no great singing voices in this musical, but all of the songs, dance numbers and skits are good. Comedy is properly billed first for "The Boy Friend," and it clearly carries the film. But the song and dance is an integral part of the plot. Because it's a story about people involved in a theater production. The production itself closely resembles the old-fashioned type of musical stage reviews, with lots of dance numbers (including chorus girls), songs and skits. The plot is a very thin thread that ties it all together. This is a film version of a very successful British play of 1954. Julie Andrews made her American debut in the Broadway production of the musical that same year. The musical quality of the stage productions probably equaled or trumped the comedy that is foremost in this film version. Some film fans might remember Twiggy when she first became known as a top model in the late 1960s. I didn't recall that she had a film career at all, until coming across this musical. She's quite funny and her singing voice is passable. Still, one can see why she had only a sparse acting career after this. Probably the best known of the rest of the cast is Tommy Tune, a superb dancer. He appeared two years before this film as a co-star in "Hello, Dolly." Tune has appeared in only three films and four TV series in five decades. But he has a lengthy career on stage. Besides his dancing he has choreographed and directed many Broadway musicals. He has nine total Tony awards in four different categories. This film has just a couple of short dance numbers for Tune as Tommy. The rest of the cast contribute to the comedy in their one-upmanship efforts as they play directly to a Hollywood scout who has come to watch their stage production. The humor is in the obvious hamming it up and back-stabbing of one another in their songs and comedy routines. The producers put a lot into this film, with superb props and examples of live stage supports for theater. In itself, that recommends the film for viewing by those who might yearn for a theater career.Outside of the stage performances within the film, the story is a little hard to follow. There are two or three subplots overlaid here. "The Boy Friend" is an amusing and fun musical romance that most should enjoy.

ianlouisiana The Great Beast of British cinema ,the eccentrics' eccentric,the mavericks' maverick,Michael Winner with visual flair....whatever your opinion of Mr K.Russell he should be regarded as more than just a purveyor of "Ken Russell Films" In "The Boyfriend" he ventured far outside what may be considered his comfort zone and came up with what maybe considered the best British musical film ever made - although that maybe unintentionally damning it with faint praise. It parades his usual flamboyance without being rococo,his flair for mixing visual images with music and his ability - when he cares enough about a project - to get his cast to act out of their skins. In the 1950s Sandy Wilson,along with Julian Slade put provincial bums on seats in London theatres with tuneful,carefree shows and revues. Frothy and gay they might have been but we lapped them up. Leave the theatre,walk along the Embankment to a Hot Pie Stall,mingle with a few "real cockneys" then hurry back to Victoria to catch the midnight train, flushed with our own daring. The sort of people - in short - Mr Russell hated. He got his own back fifteen years later by deflowering our beloved"The Girlfriend" and many older theatregoers never forgave him for it. But he turned her into a smart,snazzy,funny,brash and entertaining film that will make you leave the cinema happier than when you went in. And to me that's the primary object of any film. Life's depressing enough without paying good money to get even more depressed....right?

mark.waltz 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.

T Y 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?