They're singers and dancers. Lovers and dreamers. They're young, talented and scared.I remember finding this poster many years ago when fishing around a bargain bin in a movie memorabilia shop in Millburn, NJ. It looks like an after-effect of the Fame craze and, sure enough, it was released in 1980. That's probably not enough time for this to have been produced after the release of Fame meaning that this film was likely in production at the same time. In any event, it clearly lost out on the "down-and-out-singer-songwriter-actor-hoofer" movie sweepstakes. It's never appeared on home video and most of its stars were barely heard from again.
However, it is of interest for several reasons. One of its stars, Paul Carafotes (who, going by IMDb, was only 16 or 17 when this was filmed) would play a solid supporting role in the 1983 Tom Cruise film, All the Right Moves. Another star, Vivian Reed, is a Tony-nominated actress and sings one of my favorite '70s Philly Soul tunes, "Save Your Love For Me," which appears on the great WEA compilation, Creme de la Creme: Philly Soul Classics and Rarities.
Lastly, it was co-written by one Larry Gross, who strangely does not mention it in his diaries even as he contains amusing stories about 48 Hrs. producer Joel Silver's 1980 musical bomb, Xanadu. Headin' for Broadway director Joseph Brooks, who struck gold of a certain kind with 1977's You Light Up My Life, only had a few more directorial opportunities after this one.
1 comment:
Rex Smith went on to do Pirates of Penzance a few years later for Universal Pictures. Sadly, this was never released on DVD and is never shown on cable and even though the poster says "Soundtrack available on Columbia Records" there was no soundtrack. What s shame, c'mon 20th Century Fox, release it.
Post a Comment