00:10Welcome to TCM in this week's edition of Musical Matinee.
00:13I'm Dave Karger.
00:14Today's musical is an off-the-charts fun comedy
00:17starring the always delightful and extremely talented Rita Moreno.
00:21From 1976, also with Jack Weston, Jerry Stiller, and Kay Ballard,
00:26it's The Ritz.
00:27The movie takes place in a gay bathhouse in Manhattan.
00:31Jack Weston plays a naive businessman on the run from his murderous brother-in-law
00:35who hides out in the baths and is at first completely oblivious
00:38to the fact that he's landed in a haven for gay men.
00:42Rita Moreno co-stars as Googie Gomez,
00:44a character she described as the awful lounge singer extraordinaire
00:48who performs at the bathhouse and mistakes Jack Weston for a big Broadway producer.
00:53For Moreno, this was a character she knew inside and out
00:56before she ever played the role on screen.
00:58She originated the part on Broadway where she played Googie Gomez on stage for a year.
01:03In fact, it was because of Rita Moreno that the character was even included
01:07in the original stage play.
01:09She inspired playwright Terrence McNally to add in a singer
01:13who would perform at the bathhouse like Bette Midler did at the beginning of her career.
01:17But Googie Gomez is no Bette Midler.
01:20Part of her charm is that she has no talent,
01:22but she's convinced she can make it as a big star.
01:25Rita Moreno spent years developing the character informally
01:28as a way to entertain her friends backstage and at parties.
01:32It was at one of those parties that Terrence McNally saw her perform as Googie Gomez
01:36and he immediately knew he had to include the character in his play.
01:40For her performance in the Broadway production,
01:42Moreno won the Tony Award
01:44and she reprised the performance in the film that you're about to see.
01:47And here's a funny personal story about this movie.
01:49Last fall, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rita Moreno
01:52before a showing of The Ritz on the TCM Classic Cruise.
01:56My parents came on the cruise for the first time
01:58and planned to join me and Alicia Malone for lunch
02:01following my chat with Rita.
02:03But they ended up laughing so hard during the first few minutes of this film
02:07that they bailed on lunch and stayed to watch the entire movie.
02:11From 1976, directed by Richard Lester, here is The Ritz.
