Double Take

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES II Directed by Edouard Molinaro Screenplay by Francis Veber

It may be that the definitive word on sequels was uttered by a worldly philosopher who, upon being asked if one should repeat a homosexual experiment, replied memorably: "Once, a philosopher; twice, a pederast." It applies with particular aptness to this fitfully entertaining attempt to replicate what is alleged to be the largest-grossing foreign film in U.S. movie history. For La Cage aux Folles II makes it clear that the sheer novelty of the original--no one had thought to make a humane and sweet-spirited domestic comedy about a longstanding homosexual relationship--was responsible for much of its success. One flies away from the new Cage feeling that familiarity breeds, in this case, nothing more than empty farce, laughter without an afterlife.

The pairing is as before. Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) is still the wise, patient husband; Albin (Michel Serrault), the transvestite wife, remains prone to hysterics and to giddy romanticism. The two are involved in a rather strained spy plot after Albin comes into possession of a microfilm wanted by both the Surete and what one must assume are Communist spies. It is only when Albin and Renato are forced to flee France and take refuge in Italy, at the home of the latter's mother, that the picture comes alive. For these are the backward boondocks, where women are expected to toil for their keep. Poor Albin, forced to live not a fantasy of femininity but one of its harsher realities, finds himself scrubbing floors and harvesting grain--all of which distinctly goes against his grain. He is also pursued by an inarticulate rustic type, who is apparently smitten by the hearty figure he cuts in a peasant skirt. There are good laughs in this unlikely obsession, and in a well-managed final shootout.

This climax neatly parodies one of the sillier conventions of romantic thrillers, but the picture is rarely that delicately tuned. Ugo Tognazzi remains a marvel of sympathetic understatement as the, er, straight man, but Michel Serrault's performance has a forced, even panicky quality here, perhaps because his role is not as well written as it was the first time, lacking as it does both sympathy and well-made gags. Director Molinaro handles most of the action scenes perfunctorily, never realizing their full value either as suspense or as comedy. Since no one has bothered to think up anything new, comic or otherwise, to say about the central relationship, the movie is repetitive when it is not attenuated.

--By Richard Schickel

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