The funny season begins when you check in for a night at The Ritz.

The Ritz... your key to hilarity.

Hiding out from the Mafia can be an awful drag!


With The Ritz, Terrence McNally's hit Broadway play of the same name is cinematized by director Richard Lester. Jack Weston plays Gaetano Proclo, a minor mob flunky who's been targeted for elimination by his brother-in-law, Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller). Gaetano takes refuge in what he thinks is a Turkish bath. Actually, it's The Pits. That's the name, "The Pits" -- a gay bathhouse (this is the pre-AIDS era), where the exquisitely awful Googie Gomez (Rita Moreno) entertains the homosexual patrons with her ear-splitting renditions of such show tunes as "Everything's Coming Up Roses." Hoping to save his neck by pretending to be gay, Gaetano effusively praises Googie. Assuming that he is a big-time Broadway producer, she plays up to him. Everything would be hunky-dory, except that the bathhouse is owned by the very mob that has put a contract on Gaetano. What follows is an old-fashioned door-slamming farce, except that there are no doors to slam. The supporting cast includes Kaye Ballard, Treat Williams, George Coulouris, F. Murray Abraham, Dave King, and (as one of the patrons) a pre-Cheers John Ratzenberger.


The Ritz is a 1976 film directed by Richard Lester based on the play of the same name by Terrence McNally.
Actress Rita Moreno who had won a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez in the 1975 Broadway production, and many others of the original cast like Jack Weston, Jerry Stiller, and F. Murray Abraham reprise their onstage roles in the film version.
Also in the cast were Kaye Ballard and Treat Williams. The film, Jack Weston, and Rita Moreno all received Golden Globe nominations in the comedy category. It opened to mixed to positive reviews.


Release Date: August 12, 1976 @ Cinema II

Distrib: Warner Brothers