Jamie
It’s power to the people time here at BMT as we are focusing on winners or nominees of people/teen/kid’s choice awards. The only awards that really matter. The info on these awards are pretty sparse seeing as they are run through Gallup and so are just kind of polling name recognition, but oh what a surprise when I went to check the March 15, 1984 NYTimes:
There is more info on this advertisement than on the wikipedia page! I feel like we have a right to know that Flashdance was nominated for Favorite Motion Picture and wasn’t just the winner of Favorite Song from a Motion Picture. Also, shouldn’t we be privy to the fact that both R2D2 and C3PO were scheduled to appear alongside Swedish Chef and Meryl Streep? Now we just need to get our hands on an actual copy of the special Gallup poll.
To recap, Alex is a Pittsburgh area steel worker who dreams of being a professional dancer. But she lacks money (and the confidence) so spends her days welding away and her nights flash dancing her heart out. One night her boss, Nick, shows up to her show and is entranced. He basically gets HR on the phone and is like “Call me The Mask, cause someone should stop me.” He insists they date and ultimately they do, even as his wealth, age, and ex-wife try to get in the way. She goes through a bunch of trials and tribulations involving her best friend becoming a stripper (she says “stop that!”), Nick being spotted at a charity function with his ex-wife (she says “stop that!”) and their subsequent break-up when she finds out he pulled some strings to get her an audition at a prestigious dance school despite her lack of experience (she’s like “stop that!”). Ultimately, though, she decides to go through with the audition. Why? Because she’s a great goddamn dancer, that’s why! Obviously, she blows all the judges’ minds with her dancing and smooches Nick for hours. THE END.
I really, really liked this movie. Don’t get me wrong, the script is paper thin. I could almost feel it fluttering in the wind threatening to fly away as I watched the movie. But it is perfection in how they are able to take that script and jazz is up with pure, unadulterated entertainment. I remember taking a film class in college and being asked one day by the TA what my favorite movie was. Other students were like Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, The General… just throwing out classics. When it came to me I said the truth (at the time): Anchorman and the reason I gave was that it was pure comedy. Everything about it was meant to be funny. Even the parts that appeared not to be funny, like the love interest, was turned on its head to be a joke. And I thought it was perfect execution of pure jokes. This is perfect execution of pure entertainment. The script is trash. The plot is nonsense. It doesn’t age perfectly and it portended a wave of cocaine-fueled erotic thrillers that was… not pure entertainment. But boy… what a feeling.
Hot Take Clam Bake! I smell a scandal, ladies and gentlemen. Hear me out, it appears like Nick pulls strings at the dance academy so that Alex can fulfill her dreams. I don’t buy it. I’m thinking the chain of events is this. 1. Nick is caught with his ex-wife at the ballet. 2. Alex and him have a huge blow up at the plant that everyone sees. 3. Gossip abounds, which reaches HR. 4. Nick is brought in to talk, this is not his first strike. 5. Nick’s like “No, no, you see she doesn’t even work here anymore, she’s going to dance school and is just working till the term starts.” 6. HR is like “Really?” 7. Nick is like “Yeah, definitely.” 8. HR is like “OK, well that’s good. That’s OK.” 9. NICK IS SCRAMBLING. Alex doesn’t have any experience! Who does he know on the board?! Where is his rolodex?!… and eventually… 27. Smooching away his problem with Alex after she wins the day. Phew. Hot Take Temperature: Pittsburgh, but it’s like mid-August.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! I’m a maniac. And this movie makes me feel like we were witnessing the birth of a whole genre of movies. Let’s go!
That genre? Something along the lines of “cheapo film made with a no name actress we dress in very skimpy clothing”. This movie was a phenomenon. The third highest grossing film (domestic) of 1983 after The Return of the Jedi and Tootsie. Wikipedia claims it made over $200 million worldwide, although given the time period the number cited in the lawsuit surrounding the film ($150 million) seems more likely. $90 million domestic, $60 million worldwide. This film was made for $7 million.
Here’s a mostly unfounded theory. This film is a romantic drama. But romantic dramas are tough and often don’t make money (see something like previous BMT classic A Change of Seasons) because when they are bad people don’t like them. So you need a genre with some vim, one where even when it is bad people still find it exciting and interesting. Enter: Action, Horror, or Thriller. Action is expensive, Horror is gross, and thus the Erotic Thriller is born. That a dime-a-dozen cheap thriller script, add in a young actress, et voila. Money printer. Until it wasn’t I guess, the puritanism of the late-90s kind of caught up with it in the end.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if the actual genre (which tends to be either legal or detective thrillers) was born out of a glut of noir films still being written when the genre was effectively dead.
Oh the movie? Solid stuff. Really really entertaining. Jennifer Beale was genuinely good. And the underdog story worked well. A very Billy Elliot delivery in the end as well with the dance scene.
But yeah, the main issue is that sure: three dances (first dance, Maniac, and the audition) you can chalk up to necessity. The outfits? Fine, that’s what she wears when dancing. But the strip club scene? The workout scene? The gratuitous stretching? The dinner outfit. There are five or six bits which are obviously just there for us to ogle Beale and 40 years later it reads pretty gross. Unfortunately without a bunch of it the movie would be too short, otherwise I would wonder what a Not Gross Cut would look like and whether it would read better.
There is a Peanuts short called It’s a Flashdance, Charlie Brown. It’s on Apple+. I watched it. Unfortunately Snoopy doesn’t do the water thing at the beginning scene which is called “Flashbeagle”. So that gets a D at best.
A huge Setting as a Character (Where?) for Pittsburgh where our hero is a welder who really just dreams of being a dancer. Secret Holiday Film (When?) Alert, because we have a big scene set during Halloween. And this is definitely a Good film.
Read about the sequel 40 years in the making in Flashdance: Generations in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 