What killed movie musicals in the early 1980s?
Just as MTV was gaining a foothold in the world of cable TV in the early 1980s, movie musicals went into hiding. What was to blame? The glitzy New Wave/disco of Olivia Newton-John's XANADU? The crash-and-burn of the Village People's first (and only) big-screen vehicle CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC? The less-than-gargantuan grosses of GREASE 2? (But the sight of 24-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer climbing that ladder in the "Cool Rider" number? I'd pay top dollar!)
Tonight, Turner Classic Movies offers two more culprits. And after you see them, you will have a new appreciation for the craftsmanship of XANADU and the subtle shadings of GREASE 2...
Take a big, juicy bite of total campiness in THE APPLE, a sort of semi-remake of SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, in which guileless young songbirds are lured into decadence and degradation by the pseudo-Satanic Mr. Boogalow. "The Apple takes your soul!" promises the rather unenthusiastic narrator of the trailer, and anyone who's watched this endlessly hilarious sci-fi musical (set in the futuristic world of 1994 -- oooooh!) will heartily agree.
THE APPLE is a tough act to follow, but the sight of Linda Blair on skates might just be the thing to top it. ROLLER BOOGIE, like XANADU, was designed to cash in on the roller-disco craze; unfortunately, by the time the movies opened the trend was at an end.
Relive the glory days of feathered hair and satin shorts in ROLLER BOOGIE.Here's how badly the marketing on ROLLER BOOGIE must have been: I was a high school student at the time it opened, and my friends and I used to go to the roller rink all the time, and even we didn't go see the movie (OK, XANADU was another story). I do, however, remember that the Woodland Skating Rink -- our big hangout -- did play this hard-driving tune from the ROLLER BOOGIE soundtrack. (I take no responsibility for any freak-outs you may suffer while watching the uber-campy video...)
The ROLLER BOOGIE soundtrack: My friends and I bought Supertramp's "Breakfast in America," Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" and The Bee Gees' "Spirits Having Flown" instead, so we missed out -- big-time!What did we miss? The background article at TCM notes that "the film is a true one stop shop for anyone harboring a desire to return to the days of gold lame, tight pants, and feathered hair."
Wow, couldn't we have just taken one night off from the rollerama to see Ms. Blair do her thing?
(THE APPLE starts on TCM around 2 a.m. tonight. ROLLER BOOGIE follows at 3:45 a.m. Disco Rehab will probably follow around 5:30 a,m, or so.)
Original Source : http://www.mlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2008/06/what_killed_movie_musicals_in.html----------------
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