La Cage aux Folles

Édouard Molinaro's La Cage aux Folles (1978) was a phenomenon. It became one of the most commercially successful foreign-language films ever released in the United States, and it was a comedy that earned three Academy Award nominations, including Best Director. Adapted from Jean Poiret's hit stage farce, it gave gay characters a warm, mainstream visibility at a moment when that was still rare.

Ugo Tognazzi plays the owner of a Saint-Tropez drag cabaret, and Michel Serrault, in a César-winning performance, is his flamboyant star and partner of twenty years. The pair are forced into a frantic charade of heterosexual respectability to satisfy a prospective in-law from the moral-order brigade. Molinaro keeps the door-slamming farce moving briskly and never lets it sag, but what makes the film last is the real tenderness of the central couple, whose devotion grounds every absurdity.

Its success spawned sequels, a Broadway musical and the Hollywood remake The Birdcage. Under the broad comedy it had a progressive heart, showing vast audiences a loving same-sex relationship with affection and without apology. La Cage aux Folles is funny, generous and surprisingly sweet, a crowd-pleaser that helped shift attitudes while it made the world laugh. Its enormous popularity helped normalise gay characters for mainstream audiences around the world, and its warmth has long outlasted the farce that made it a hit.