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Title: Flashdance (1983)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Jennifer Beals | ... | Alex Owens | |
| Michael Nouri | ... | Nick Hurley | |
| Lilia Skala | ... | Hanna Long | |
| Sunny Johnson | ... | Jeanie Szabo | |
| Kyle T. Heffner | ... | Richie | |
| Lee Ving | ... | Johnny C. | |
| Ron Karabatsos | ... | Jake Mawby | |
| Belinda Bauer | ... | Katie Hurley | |
| Malcolm Danare | ... | Cecil | |
| Philip Bruns | ... | Frank Szabo (as Phil Bruns) | |
| Micole Mercurio | ... | Rosemary Szabo | |
| Lucy Lee Flippin | ... | Secretary | |
| Don Brockett | ... | Pete | |
| Cynthia Rhodes | ... | Tina Tech | |
 |
Durga McBroom | ... | Heels |
Alex Owens is a female dynamo: steel worker by day, exotic dancer by night. Her dream is to get into a real dance company, though, and with encouragement from her boss/boyfriend, she may get her chance. The city of Pittsburgh co-stars. What a feeling! Written by Stewart M. Clamen <clamen@cs.cmu.edu>
Although I've long known, generally speaking, what this movie is about, I never saw it when it came out in 1983 or 1984, because I was too busy "living" the 80's (yeah, right, whatever that means!). But I just saw it recently, in its entirety, the other night on TV.
I don't know, maybe it's the current sorry state of affairs of the world today that made me want to watch this film, just so I could revisit the "happy days(?)" of the eighties, when, although the world was also in a sorry state of affairs, at least there was an underlying pretense of hope and glory, a pervasive (albeit childlike) adherence to the belief that wishes DO sometimes come true, miracles CAN happen, and for every ugly frog there IS a beautiful princess waiting to kiss him...
This movie sucks, bigtime... but it also rocks! And that, people, is the honest to God truth. This movie is so bad it reeks of the stench of the very phoney-baloney on which it is based (and we all know how awful THAT is). BUT, it also rocks you to your very soul, and hey, how can you possibly fault a movie that dares to offer people (and not just young people, but ALL people) that little thing called HOPE???
I hope you don't take my "critique" the wrong way... Honestly, I don't think the movie is really all that good, but the message, and the feeling, and the spirit of this movie, are all very wonderful and infectious indeed and should NOT be discounted. It makes it a wonderful movie. Strange, isn't it? If those of you reading this are parents with up-and-coming kids, make them sit through this film!! Make them watch it!! I guarantee you, at least there is not a single scene in it where some teenager just HAS to have sex with a baked pastry object!!
Finally, let me comment on the fact that many in filmdom have dissed Jennifer Beals over the fact that a stand-in dancer performed various or several of her dance segments. Well let me just mention, that at the very end of the film, in the credit roll, there is a disclaimer that states: "The people and events in this film are fictional. Any similarity to actual people or events is unintentional." So, with this in mind a stunt double performed some of the dance steps!?? I was shocked, shocked to find that stunt doubles are used in Hollywood!!