During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent school teacher.
Director: Herbert Ross
Stars: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Jessica Harper.
Danny Daniels (b. '24) ... choreographer
Randy Doney ... assistant to the choreographer
Daniel Joseph Giaghi ... assistant to the choreographer
18 songs in the Soundtracks, only 1 was sung by the principals, all others were mimed. The songs of this era are among my favorites.
But everyone is doing their own dancing, and it's terrific, with great production numbers. SM is a marvelous dancer. Per the c.track, although he had the "happy feet" routine in his standup and on SNL, he learned to dance for this film.
Tommy Rall (b. '29) is over 50 now, and he still did a flying move that's impressive. His face looks his age, or maybe even older.
Christopher Walken has a lengthy striptease solo, and moves beautifully. His face looks so young (b. '43), without the bags under the eyes.
Almost 4.7k IMDb votes average 6.5. The film was a financial and critical flop, with exceptions like Pauline Kael and Peter Rainer.
I find it brilliant. The musical numbers contrast sharply with the real-life scenes, and the transitions in and out of them are intentionally abrupt. Rather like Hitchcock spiking his films with humor, the contrasting exuberance of the musical numbers resets the mood to allow for more ugly reality. But they also convey character, giving us inner thoughts without slogging through dialog or Acting.
The film also gives a marvelous feel for the impact of the Great Depression on individuals: how hopeless the future felt. It's not just people saying that, and showing people hungry and desperate, but showing what these people were doing to get by, and making them the principals of the film.
I related to the SM & BP characters. I like that no one who mimed and danced had a showbiz occupation in the film.
I don't want to describe the few things that I didn't like, because I don't want to reveal any plot, in the hopes that I'll come back to the film with fresh eyes, as I did today (although I remembered where TR was in it, and that it had a lot of dancing).
Good c.track. Nice that they provided a way to forward past the non-commented chapters.
MGM, dir. Ross; 9
