Trailer
Plot summary
Samantha Simpson, a retired supermodel, shares an apartment with a songwriter named Jack Morell. He leaves his record store job to DJ at the disco Saddle Tramps, and when the crowd responds to a song he wrote for her, she offers to help him find a label. Her former boyfriend Steve Waits, who runs Marrakech Records, is keener on restarting their romance than on Jack's music, though he agrees to hear a demo. Jack's singing does not satisfy him, so Sam brings in Felipe Rose, David Hodo and Randy Jones from around Greenwich Village. A lawyer from St. Louis, Ron White, reaches the apartment with a cake sent by Sam's sister.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Can't Stop the Music (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Can't Stop the Music was the first winner of the Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture, and it was a double feature of this film and Xanadu that inspired John J. B. Wilson to start the Razzies in the first place.
- Allan Carr tried to cast Olivia Newton-John as Samantha Simpson, but talks with Morali over who would write her songs fell apart and she took the lead in Xanadu instead. Carr blamed "creative control and other demands", which Newton-John said she never understood.
- Tensions between director Nancy Walker and star Valerie Perrine ran so high that Walker would not be present for Perrine's scenes, leaving cinematographer Bill Butler to direct them instead. Perrine was also unhappy that one of her dance numbers was cut.
- Filming in New York was disrupted by gay activists protesting William Friedkin's Cruising, which was shooting nearby; the two productions were mistaken for each other more than once and protests landed on the Can't Stop the Music shoot.
- Ray Simpson's policeman role was written for Victor Willis, the Village People's original lead singer, who left the group before filming. His then-wife Phylicia Ayers-Allen had been hired to play Alicia Edwards but quit when he did, and Altovise Davis replaced her.
- The film became a New Year tradition in Australia, where the Nine Network shows it every year in the early hours of New Year's Day, straight after the fireworks.
- Can't Stop the Music was Caitlyn Jenner's film debut, after three decathlon world records and a 1976 Olympic gold medal. She did not appear in another film until Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill in 2011, which also took the Worst Picture Razzie.
