The enormous international success of Édouard Molinaro’s 1978 farce led to its being adapted as a smash Broadway musical in 1984 and a successful Hollywood film in 1996. The film is about a gay couple Albin (Michel Serrault), a flamboyant stage queen, and Renato (Ugo Tognazzi), his club-owning partner, trying to hide their relationship when Renato’s son became engaged to the daughter of a homophobic politician Charrier (Michel Galabru).
It also spawned this 1981 sequel from Molinaro, which received lukewarm reviews and was only a modest success. Like the first film, it focuses on Albin and Renato but differs in being a pure knockabout farce rather than a comedy with intermittently poignant episodes.
The plot begins when Albin, distressed by Renato’s suggestion that he shares the stage with a younger performer, attempts to prove his attractiveness by going out in public in his feminine garb and is accidentally picked up by a spy trying to escape murderous pursuers after an important roll of microfilm. After the spy is shot to death and the microfilm disappears (it was actually passed to Albin, but he does not know it), the two are blackmailed by intelligence operatives to serve as bait to draw out the enemy spies.
Everything goes awry, of course, and ultimately they decide to flee to Renato’s estranged family in Italy, where Albin, in drag pretending to be Renato’s wife, rebels at being treated like a slave to the males (including Renato) until his being taken hostage by the villains leads to a happy reunion with his long-time partner.
Tognazzi really falls into the background as the film goes on, leaving Serrault to fill the vacuum, and while a fine actor, he responds with a performance that, by today’s standards, is so extravagantly over-the-top that some might find it a mite offensive. The only other carryovers from the original—Galabru as the exasperated Charrier and Benny Luke as Albin and Renato’s maid Jacob—are also prone to excess.
Nonetheless, despite the decision to go for sheer nuttiness, there remains an undercurrent of genuine sweetness and affection in the Albin-Renato relationship, and some of the madcap episodes—like one in which the couple instructs the agents guarding them on how to “act gay,” and the supposedly swishy types then beat up a gang of Charrier’s beefy, bigoted supporters—retain their punch.
This sequel does not match the original, but it has its moments, especially if one can accept Serrault’s wildly campy turn, and it is certainly superior to the awful third film in the series, which came out in 1985, bombed, and decisively ended the franchise.
The Blu-ray boasts a fine transfer and allows you to choose between the original French version of the film (with optional English subtitles) and a badly-dubbed English alternative, but the sole extra is the theatrical trailer. Amiable but inferior to its predecessor, La Cage aux Folles II can be considered a strong optional purchase for developing your public library's classic film and comedy collection.
Discover more titles for your film collection in our list of comedy movies.