Disco scene lives on — on film

Press, 28 August 1980, Page 14

Disco scene lives on — on film

By

NEVIN TOPP

Some years ’ago there was an American television comedy, “Car 54, Where Are You?” being shown on the box in New Zealand. It featured two New. York patrol car cops who four-handedly disrupted the Big Apple to make it look better than it really was —at that time. Similarly, the film “Can’t Stop The Music” (Avon) makes out the disco-hip' scene in New York look better than it really was. And “was” is the emphasis, for the music that the Village People, the United States disco group, play in the film is behind the present trends in music by at least a year. “Can’t’Stop The Music” is a bump and grind film. Both Samantha Simpson (Valerie Perrine) and Ron White (Bruce Jenner) have bumps in the right places, and in parts the film is a grind to watch, particularly some of the drawn out dance sequences.

The film, is hype rather than , hip in content, as much as it would like to he the latter.. Take sex j— Samantha, says she has done it, but wears off it for the' moment; Ron White says he was married, so presumably he has done it too; Jack Morell (Steve Guttenberg), the composer who wants to be big (starwise) and around whom the film’s plot is based, says he has done it, but is going to remain celibate until fame arrives (in fact, he does not look like he has done it at all)'; and Village People, the sextet, do not say whether they have done it, or with whom.

The dances are erotic in content. One song-dance routine, “The Milk Shake,” is meant to be for a -television commercial, but close ups of erotic dancing make it clear that a milk shake from a drugstore is the last thing anyone is thinking of.

The dance sequence .to the song, “Y.M.C.A.,” which takes place in a big gymnasium, is impressive, particularly the hurdling, but that was not what the song was about. It is supposed to be- based on the alleged homosexual activity associated with the New York Y.M.C.A. “Can’t Stop The Music” is pleasant enough, funny in places, but over-all lacks a decent storyline, and is uncertain in content.

Perrine is supposed to be the most sought after model in the United States, yet she comes across like Superwoman with Jenner as Superdad. Tammv Grimes, who plays Sydney Channing, the head of Samantha’s modelling agency, actually looks a better model than Perrine. And as for the music, disco’s dead and so is Studio 54, the namedroppers’ disco club in New York.