Wikipedia sources say: "La Cage aux Folles" is a play by the French playwright Jean Poiret. The play was turned into a French film in 1978. The Americanized version "The Birdcage" (La Cage aux Folles) starting Robin Williams and Nathan Lane came out in 1996, and became an instant comedy hit.
Val Goldman (Dan Futterman) and Barbara Keeley played by Calista Flockhart (Alley McBeal) decide to get engage. Sounds like typical love-wrong! Val is the son of Armand Goldman and his live in lover affectionately called/known by their housekeeper (Hank Azaria) as "Miss Albert." Albert is a famous drag queen performer also known as "Starina." The film opens with Albert having self-doubts about his worth as a woman, and to add insult to injury: Armand reminds him that he's in fact not a woman, making Albert very angry at his lover Armand.
Senator Keeley (excellently played by Gene Hackman) is a hard core right wing conservative. Barbara his daughter must make this work. She tells her parents that Val's parent's are in fact very high-class cultured people (Armand is an attaché to Greece), and that Albert is actually a housewife.
Shortly after, Senator Keeley finds out that his co-founder (coalition for moral order) dies in the bed of a teenage black prostitute….
Now Barbara's parents are really gung-ho and start to really push for their daughter's wedding; their daughter's wedding to such a high-class cultured family like this one is will bring them votes which Senator Keeley is in need of in order to get re-elected.
Val's mother whom hasn't seeing him since his birth decides to help out and act as his mother. Of course, as is the case in comedies everything turns upside-down. The end result to this mess is: Albert dresses up as a housewife, and impresses the senator to such a great extent that both the senator and his wife now really want their daughter married to the young man.
When the Senator finds out, well…too funny! He says to his daughter one of the best lines in the movie: "I'm in the middle of a scandal! I'm in the home of two gay man who own a drag-club. I realize you want to be happy, but how many lives do you have to ruin to do it?"
The movie is a million laughs!
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