CATCH A CLASSIC
TCM Spotlight: Dance Numbers
TCM, beginning at 7 p.m.
Each Monday night this month on Turner Classic Movies, put on your dancing shoes (or at least watch others use theirs) with a lineup of brilliantly choreographed movie musicals. Tonight’s initial lineup spans a range of eras, beginning with
Small Town Girl, the delightful 1953 film featuring choreography by the legendary Busby Berkeley (including the memorable “Street Dance” performed by costar
Bobby Van hopping around town). Small Town Girl received a Best Original Song Oscar nomination for Nicholas Brodszky and Leo Robin’s “My Flaming Heart.” The movie is led by Jane Powell and Ann Miller, actresses also known for their dancing, and Farley Granger, who, while not necessarily remembered as a dancer onscreen, did take dance lessons and had hoped to
become a tap dancer when he was a kid. Tonight’s next film brings us forward nearly
30 years with Fame (pictured) (1980), Alan Parker’s acclaimed drama following students at New York City’s High School of Performing Arts. The film was shot on location in the Big Apple, lending a gritty realism to even its famous street-dancing musical number set to the Oscar-winning hit title tune, which was performed by star Irene Cara. Choreographed by Louis
Falco, this sequence took three days to film and incorporated eight choreographed
routines, 150 student background actors and 50 professional dancers. The evening concludes with one of the greatest movie musicals ever made: West Side Story
(1961), the famed big-screen adaptation of the Broadway hit that boasts iconic music and songs by composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Jerome Robbins, who had directed and choreographed the stage version of West Side Story, codirected the film with Robert Wise, bringing to thrilled moviegoers his unique and colorful fusion of jazz and ballet
moves across multiple classic musical numbers. The film won 10 of the 11 Oscars for which it was nominated, and Robbins was given a special Honorary Award from the Academy for “Brilliant Achievements in the Art of Choreography on Film.” The evening ends early tomorrow morning with
That’s Dancing!, a 1985 compilation film that looks back at the history of dancing in the movies. — Jeff Pfeiffer