Can't Stop the Music - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Can't Stop the Music tries in vain to update the old Hollywood musical spectacles of the 1930s to the dawn of the 1980s. Certain that disco music would live forever, it draws its story from the real-life singing group The Village People, created by French producer and songwriter Jacques Morali in 1977. Here we see a fictionalized story of how the Village People got their start in the music business and became worldwide superstars. Steve Guttenberg is Jack Morell (a play on the name Jacques Morali), an aspiring songwriter who has recorded a few demos but hasn't hit it big yet. He shares an apartment in New York's Greenwich Village (hence the name Village People) with platonic roommate Samantha (Valerie Perrine) where he has a small recording studio set up.

Jack is so confident that his songs will hit the top of the charts, but he needs to find the right people to perform them. Samantha pretty much lines up stuff for him that he isn't competent enough to do himself- she heads out for "a Baskin-Robbins rush" (the most obvious product placement in the movie, which had a tie-in Flavor of the Month called Can't Stop the Nuts when the movie was released) and runs into several people who she invites to a dinner party where they'll sing on a demo tape of Jack's songs. This results in a cheesy number where they sing "Magic Night" out on the back patio, not even trying to keep the microphones on themselves but turning out a perfect recording. 

Samantha once dated Steve Waits (Paul Sand), the president of Marrakesh Records (another play, on the real Casablanca Records label that the Village People and other famous disco artists of the era released their albums through). She badgers him into giving Jack some studio time to record more demos. She also runs into another connection, lawyer Ron White (Caitlyn Jenner when she was known as Bruce, the movie credits have not been updated) to handle the legal affairs and also use his firm's office to hold auditions for more singers. After all is said and done, their group is named the Village People in honor of their Greenwich Village origins and consists of a number of stereotypical characters, going by their real names: Motorcycle-riding Policeman Ray Simpson (who actually replaced the original cop Victor Willis in 1979, who has since gone back in and out of the group a few times), Construction Worker David Hodo, feathered headdress-wearing Indian (more politically correct term would be Native American, but that's what they called him then) Felipe Rose, Cowboy Randy Jones, biker "Leatherman" Glenn Hughes, and Army G. I. Alex Briley. Truth be told, the Policeman was the only member who did the most on the songs with lead vocals, the others mainly just sang baritone-heavy backup. There was even a song written for him (not included here) called "Hot Cop" but none that showcased the other characters unless you count "In the Navy" (their second-biggest hit, also not heard in this movie) where Briley traded his Army uniform for a sailor suit.

The assumption when Can't Stop the Music was made was that the real-life Village People would be one of the world's top music groups for decades to come and of course disco would never die. The reality was that the disco fad, which while popular also had a lot of backlash from its overexposure ("Disco Sucks" was a popular saying by the late 70s) and by 1980 when this movie was released was quickly falling out of favor. In the years after that, one didn't even dare say the word "disco" in public. While the movie was considered a rather big release, it bombed at the box office and the critics hated it- one said that "PLEASE Stop the Music" would have been a better title. The Golden Raspberry Awards, held at Oscar time and honoring the worst in film rather than the best, was inspired in part by this movie and it won the very first award for Worst Picture in 1981.

So why bother releasing this on 4K in the year 2024? Well, some crazy film fans including myself actually enjoy bad movies. This gives such audiences plenty to laugh at besides the idea of the Village People having more than 15 minutes of fame, the overall enthusiasm the supporting characters show for them is just hilarious. Steve Guttenberg's Jack is unbelievably optimistic that he's going to hit it big in the music business, his musical number "Sound of the City" (sung by David London) over the opening credits will be a good test of whether you'll love this movie or hate it. One of my favorite lines in the movie is Valerie Perrine as Samantha "The 70s are dead and gone - the 80s are gonna be something wonderfully new and different, and so am I."

The songs are a riot also while they play out more like music videos than numbers in a traditional old-style musical. The highlight is the Village People's biggest hit "YMCA" performed at an actual YMCA with tons of split screens and visual effects by master Ron Hays. they will have you dancing if you're humble enough to buy into what this movie is selling. The biggest negative point I can give about it is that there's a 25-minute stretch where the music DOES stop for too long, with no songs performed.

Vital Disc Stats - The 4k Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Can't Stop the Music keeps on truckin' on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. A two-disc release, the discs are housed in a sturdy black case with identical slipcover art. The discs load to static image main menus with standard navigation options. 

Can't Stop the Music was shot in anamorphic 2.35:1 and had 70mm blow-up prints in some theaters during its brief engagement. It didn't fare very well in the home for a long time; Thorn-EMI Video issued it on VHS in the early 80s with some of the worst panning and scanning I've ever seen. It never saw a high-quality release until Anchor Bay's DVD in 2002, which many thought was the best it was ever likely to look but Shout! Factory miraculously put out a Blu-Ray in 2019 with a newer transfer from StudioCanal. Shout had announced in advance that the disc was going out of print, so likely many panic-bought that only to see Kino-Lorber issue this new 4K release soon afterward.

The upgrade from DVD to Blu-Ray was clearly worthwhile as there are plenty of period details one can see more clearly in HD, but does it benefit any further from 4K? That's a bit harder to say, unfortunately. There is a slightly higher bump in quality from the Blu-Ray, but the 4K disc lacks any type of HDR used on the majority of the format's titles so that will be an immediate disappointment to many. Also as much as I love this movie, it never really looked great to begin with. The colors are muted throughout and much of it is shot in a soft-focus style, such was the intention of Director of Photography Bill Butler who previously shot Jaws and Grease in a similar style. The transfer used on both the 4K and 1080p Blu-Ray disc (where the stills in this review were taken from) in this set appears to be the same used on the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray.

I've seen this movie so many times that I usually scan the frame for small details I might have missed previously. Highlights inside Samantha and Jack's New York apartment include a long poster that I remember from that time, showing an ice cream cone with many scoops stacked from floor to ceiling. Dr. Pepper cans, an obvious product placement as that seems to be the only thing anyone drinks in this movie, are easily read, and a new detail I noticed here was some U-Matic videotapes on the record company desk sporting the rainbow-style cover labels used by 20th Century Fox in the 70s.

Before digital sound for 35mm film came along in the early 90s, 70mm prints were issued not just for improved visuals but also their discrete magnetic audio tracks. On both discs, we get a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track that more or less reproduces that mix. While the music is an undoubtedly energetic element of Can't Stop the Music, the mix has never been surround-heavy. The surround channels are in fact barely noticeable if you aren't listening for them, they mainly provide a bit of ambient sound and echo during the songs. The Anchor Bay DVD even tried to expand on this mix with an extra surround channel on its DTS-ES track (which that label seemed fond of doing), but even there the surrounds just don't call attention to themselves. Not to say that the audio is bad, it just isn't that exceptional but it's nice to at least hear it properly considering the old VHS release was in mono even on the later issues on HBO Video with Hi-Fi audio and this is a definite improvement over that. There are a few scenes where dialogue tends to leak from the center channel into the front left and right. 

Two commentary tracks are included on both discs:

• Audio Commentary by Film Critic/Historian Lee Gambin with Podcaster and Village People Expert DJ Maynard, newly recorded for this release. Gabin passed in May of this year and the unskippable opening of the disc includes a memorial message.
• Audio Commentary by The Fabulous Allan Carr Director Jeffrey Schwarz and Comedy Writer Bruce Vilanch is carried over from the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray, with one bit in the beginning muted out here- "In its Blu-Ray debut, it's gonna look gorgeous!"

The other extras are included only on the Blu-Ray disc and are all carried over from the previous Blu-Ray release:

• A Wink, A Wiggle, and a Wave: Interview with Village People's Randy Jones (HD, 25 minutes) is the first of two interview segments. Jones tells us how he got into show business as a backup dancer for Grace Jones and was then discovered by Jacques Morali for the Village People.
• Can't Stop the Cowboy: Interview with Village People's Randy Jones (HD, 41 minutes) has Jones speaking in the same studio and talks more about making Can't Stop the Music giving plenty of stories on the experience.
• TV Spots (upconverted HD, 1 minute) are taken from off-air recordings with the ending title cards replaced with newer renderings. Tim Salmons is credited for contributing these.
• Trailer (upconverted HD, 3 minutes) is a hilarious promo for the movie. This appears to have been taken from an analog videotape source and zoomed to 16x9; the transfer on the Anchor Bay DVD was closer to a 1.85 ratio and appeared to have been a more authentic film transfer.

The Shout! Blu-Ray included three still-frame galleries, one carried over from the older DVD, which are not included here. A prime time TV special called "Magic Night" aired before this movie's release to promote it; that would have been something to see.

Those who unashamedly enjoy cheesy musicals or anything from the disco era need to have this movie in their collection. Whether it's worth a double-dip if you already have the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray disc is debatable, however. The lack of HDR and the general look of this movie makes the 4K disc a slight but not huge upgrade, and the bonus still galleries from the previous release missing here are also a bummer and reason to hold onto that in any case. Recommended