The Birdcage | 1996
- Locations |
- Florida
- DIRECTOR |
- Mike Nichols
The Birdcage location: The ‘Birdcage Club’: The Carlyle, Miami Beach
This Hollywood remake of the Seventies French farce La Cage Aux Folles (which was set on the French Riviera) uses the plot as a blunt instrument to clobber the hypocritical mores of the supposed Moral Majority.
Robin Williams is surprisingly restrained as the butch half of a gay partnership while Nathan Lane whoops and squeals as the undisguisable queen.
Worth seeing alone for the sight of Gene Hackman in drag. The locale is transposed from St Tropez in the South of France to the wonderful Art Deco district of South Miami Beach.
The ‘Birdcage Club’ itself is actually the splendid Carlyle, 1250 Ocean Drive at 13th Street. Built in 1939, it's one of South Beach's celebrated Art Deco landmarks, its façade virtually unchanged.
