Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

A non-glamorous portrayal of the lives of people who make their living at a strip club.

Director:

Michael Radford

Writers:

Michael Radford (screenplay), David Linter (screenplay)

Stars:

Charlotte Ayanna, Daryl Hannah, Kristin Bauer van Straten

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Charlotte Ayanna	...	Jessie
Kristin Bauer van Straten	...	Nico (as Kristin Bauer)
W. Earl Brown	...	Bobby
Daryl Hannah	...	Angel
Chris Hogan	...	Dennis
Sheila Kelley	...	Stormy
Elias Koteas	...	Sully
Vladimir Mashkov	...	Sacha
Sandra Oh	...	Jasmine
Rodney Rowland	...	Charlie
Jennifer Tilly	...	Jo
Robert Wisdom	...	Eddie
David Amos	...	Dave
Carolyne Aycaguer	...	Sophie
R.C. Bates	...	Jimmy (as RC Bates)

Storyline

Angel is a dancer wishing to adopt a child. Stormy is a dancer with a secret with her brother Sully. Jasmine is a poetess who falls in love with Dennis. Jo is a dancer who became pregnant and Jessie is a woman fighting to survive in Hollywood. The link between them is the fact that they dance at Blue Iguana, a strip-club managed by Eddie. Their personal dramas are the theme of this movie.

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Plot Keywords:

strip club | color in title | breasts | prostitution | incest | 

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Taglines:

five souls exposed

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for pervasive sexual content/nudity, language, some drug content and brief violence

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Russian

Release Date:

11 October 2001 (Israel)

Also Known As:

Historias de la noche

Filming Locations:

Santa Clarita, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$30,181, 21 October 2001, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$30,181, 21 October 2001

Company Credits

Production Co:

Moonstone Entertainment, Bergman Lustig Productions, Dragon Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

123 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jack Conley, who plays the traffic policeman who chastises Angel, later played a recurring villain on Angel (1999), the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) spinoff.

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Goofs

Jo frequently takes long swigs from her whiskey container, yet never swallows any drink and speaks immediately after taking the container away from her mouth.

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Quotes

Angel: [Whistling and waving] Officer? Officer, could... could you help me with... I... Could you help take a picture of my... I want to take a picture of myself in front of this billboard.
Officer Pete Foster: Is that you?
Angel: Yeah.
Officer Pete Foster: Really.
Angel: I'm a lot smaller in person.

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Alternate Versions

On the DVD commentary Michael Radford says there are enough deleted scenes to make 10 entire different versions of the whole movie. Each scene was re-filmed over 12 times as Dancing at the Blue Iguana was improvised and Michael got the actors to try each scene with alternate dialogue several times until the actors had no ideas left. However, only a select few deleted scenes/alternate takes are included on the DVD.

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Connections

References Behind the Green Door (1972)

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Soundtracks

Recognition
Written by Bob McLynn, Mike Watt, Mike Fernbacher
Performed by The Step Kings
Used by permission of Roadrunner Records

User Reviews

Interesting experiment

I would have thought there aren't many ways to make a serious movie about pole-dancers and be taken seriously. The list of stripper-specific life crises is depressingly short. Anything you present in such a movie, any plot twist or character interaction, could take place just as easily in a diner or a hospital or a homeless shelter or, for that matter, an insurance company. The only reason to set it in a strip club is to show actresses with their clothes off so as to draw in the geeks.

The comedic possibilities are endless, on the other hand. There is a scene in this movie in which Jennifer Tilly's character is having a dominatrix session with some hapless male, and one of the other strippers, drunk and battered, walks in on it and refuses to go away and wait tactfully for the session to be over. Tilly alternates between stridently artificial abuse of her "slave" and sincere concern, mixed with exasperation, for the other woman in the room. It reminded me a little of the scene in Deconstructing Harry where Kirstie Alley, playing a psychiatrist, alternately delivers calm professional platitudes to her patient and screams obscenities at her philandering husband in the next room. The problem with Tilly's scene is that battered woman in the room with her. We aren't allowed to see any comedy in *that*.

So, the movie tries to be taken seriously by being mostly grim and depressing. (Darryl Hannah's character is actually painful to watch.) But all throughout the movie one question kept tugging at my thoughts: "Why is this stripper film different from other stripper films?" The answer came at the start of the closing credits, when it was revealed that the movie was largely (totally?) improvised by the actors. That set me back. It accounted for the eerie feeling I had that I was watching some sort of documentary. The actors and the director deserve a lot of credit for trying something like this. The movie is definitely worth seeing.