Based on a hit Broadway play by Tony-winner Terrence McNally, 1976's The Ritz is a pleasant trifle of a farce that wrings a few guffaws from a talented cast of character actors.

The yarn kicks off when an elderly New York mobster named Vespucci (George Coulouris) kicks the bucket, but not before screaming "Get Proclo!" and demanding the death of his son-in-law, portly Cleveland sanitation company owner Gaetano Proclo (Jack Weston). Needless to say, the deathbed wish prompts a flustered Gaetano to hightail it in the nearest taxi and ask to be taken to the one place he isn't likely to be found.

That place turns out to be a gay bathhouse in Greenwich Village. Even so, it takes a while for the rather dense Gaetano Proclo to realize that the facility is no run-of-the-mill health club. In short order, he finds himself pursued by a slew of quirky characters. A bespectacled "chubby chaser" (Paul B. Price) tries luring Gaetano with candy cars and chocolate éclairs. Hot-to-trot cabaret singer Googie Gomez (Rita Moreno) mistakenly thinks Gaetano is a Broadway producer scouting for talent.

Proclo's biggest threat, however, comes from his thuggish brother-in-law, Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller) and a pipsqueak-voiced private detective (Treat Williams) whom Carmine has hired to entrap Gaetano in a compromising position. What ensues is the sort of broad farce that the Marx Brothers used to execute so brilliantly, but which can feel downright lame in less capable hands.

Given the storyline and the time period, it's no surprise that The Ritz is packed to the gills with musty gay stereotypes. Nevertheless, the stereotypes are decidedly less crass and mean-spirited than a number of contemporary flicks (I'm talking to you, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry). Shot five years before the first recorded AIDS case, The Ritz and its lampooning of gay bathhouses now feels like a time capsule's quaint discovery.

Director Richard Lester had some masterful comedies to his credit, but here he isn't entirely successful breaking free from The Ritz's stage-bound conventions. Still, the director manages to keep the mood and pace light and fizzy. More important, he elicits some wonderfully supercharged performances from Moreno, Stiller and a scene-stealing F. Murray Abraham (bearing a striking resemblance to Harry Shearer) as a bathhouse regular who befriends Proclo. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Moreno, Stiller and Abraham, along with Weston, were in the original Broadway cast.

Presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1, the picture is serviceable, if not exactly stunning. Colors are rich, but there is slight grain throughout the movie.

The mono audio track does what it needs to do, and nothing more. Subtitles are available in French and English for the hearing-impaired.

Does a theatrical trailer count? That's it for bonus material.

A solid cast and a smattering of laughs keep The Ritz from total obscurity, but Warners Home Video makes no bones about this being an afterthought DVD release.