Happy Birthday, Gemini

Dull, self-obsessed people voice their self-obsession in this movie version of Albert Innaurato's Off-Broadway hit. The cast, including Madeline Kahn, and Rita Moreno try to make up for their inherent slovenliness by loudness.

If you were to make a burlesque of what people imagine to be an Off-Broadway play, you couldn't do better than this, with its annoying ethnic portrayals, and Alan Rosenberg's uncertainty about his sexual identity, as he announces to his girlfriend, Sarah Holcomb, that he's gay. When I write "you couldn't do better", in many ways I mean you couldn't do worse, as Miss Kahn swans around in the world's largest beehive hairdo.

These are just the sort of characters and situations that Neil Simon could and did make interesting and funny. I suspect that the people involved in this movie thought they were doing that, but they didn't.

Happy Birthday, Gemini is by far a great comedy/drama, but it has some very funny moments. Based on the off-Broadway smash of the 1970's, it loses its magic on the big screen. Robert Viharo, Alan Rosenberg, David Marshall Grant, Timothy Jenkins and Sarah Holcomb are all mostly unknowns and the real stars are the legendary ladies Rita Moreno and Madeline Kahn in her first and last top billed role. She gives an over the top hysterically funny and sad performance. If this film had had a better director it could have been a much better film. I wish it could be released on DVD being it 25 years since its theatrical release. I remember seeing it in 1980 and it was out one week and gone the next. It is sure worth a look. It drags at times I will admit, but to see the 2 leading ladies together is a real treat.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEMINI turned out to be a happy surprise for me, the best widely lambasted movie I've seen in years. A wild farce about some earthy, low-income Philadephians, it's based on a hit play that premiered in 1977 and was still running almost a year after this modest movie adaptation was made! I remember the bad reviews at the time of it's release but had never seen the movie until recently watching it on youtube where it exists in a not very good print that has been sliced into ten episodes but this is likely to be the only place you will be able to see it, it was briefly released on videotape in the 1980's and probably played on cable premium channels a few times back then but I doubt it's been on TV since as much for its limited appeal as for Madeline Kahn's hilarious potty mouth.

20-year-old college student Francis Geminiani is not happy by a surprise visit from his quasi-girlfriend Judith and her brother Randy on the eve of his birthday mainly because he's begun to realize he's gay and actually attracted to the brother rather than the sister. The wealthy young siblings though are warmly welcomed by Francis' father and his middle-aged girlfriend (Rita Moreno playing an Italian Catholic!)and a neighbor, aging floozy Bunny Weinberger (Kahn) and her twentyish, plump, clumsy asthmatic son Herschel.

Top-billed Kahn is actually a secondary character (second-billed Moreno has an even smaller role) but she's delicious as a faded, crude mantrap who is just realizing her best days are now behind her. Her unsuccessful suicide attempt is a gem of a comic scene. The fairly obscure young leads (Robert Viharo, Sarah Holcomb, David Marshall Grant) are good but not unexpectedly unable to hold their own with a master comedienne like Kahn. On the other hand the even less known actor Timothy Jenkins as Bunny's infantile son whom she alternately babies and bullies actually steals the film in an endearing performance. Sadly he appears to never had another major part. Theirs is one of the best smother-mother and child duos created on film and there's even a lovely moment when they sing "Moon River" together off key as Kahn hammers at the piano.

The direction is not particularly good and the film resembles a TV-movie programmer from the era with it's camera shots but the script still has much of the punch of the play and the seven leads are all quite good. No small part of it's lack of success in 1980 was it's sympathetic attitude to homosexuality (though nothing remotely sexual ever happens) which was way ahead of the general population of the era. This might have been a hit a decade or so later but then we wouldn't have the wonderful performances of Kahn and Jenkins in that film.

This play had significant personal meaning for me in the early 80s and I only recently found a copy of this film adaptation. Like many stage comedies, the translation to film falls flat in most scenes partly due to the absence of theatrical elements (including the audience) but the biggest problem with this version is the casting. With ethnicity at the core of much of the humor, it was less than convincing to have Rita Moreno as an Italian widow, Madeline Kahn as an Irish floozy, and other characters trying to "play" an ethnicity that was not natural for them. But I really liked the ending on this filmed version, and the scene between Francis and his father at the end was very real and touching making this a nice "coming out" film for the whole family.

This film was groundbreaking in 1980, it's a poignant story about love and acceptance told through laughter. This is the film version of "Gemini" which ran on Broadway in the late 1970's. The cast is dynamic, with Madeline Kahn in an astounding performance as Bunny. Rita Moreno is also hilarious playing Italian. The characters are colorful or stereotypes, or both. Anyone who has ever brought home friends and cringed around their families will relate, but also to the love and support that family can give. A feel good movie with some memorable lines and a really sweet soul.

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