Next Year in... Las Vegas??

Even Depression, it seems, must come to an end.

I may have been bouncing back and forth between Busby Berkeley and Step Up for the last month of so, but all of that has been part of the larger series of Depression/Comedy that we've been exploring since January.

The Busby Berkeley "musicals" of the 1930s were a direct product of that era, but I hope it has become obvious to everyone by now just how much the "Step Up" franchise owes to the Busby Berkeley model.

While many film-makers over the decades have tried (with sporadic success) to emulate the "look" of a Busby Berkeley dance routine...

...the Step Up films have followed the tone, the structure and even specific plot-points of the earlier films. 

And they have been wildly popular and successful with audiences. Whatever one thinks of the music, the acting, or the complexities(!) of the plots, these films appear to have met a need with modern audiences. The response to them has been dramatic and unmistakeable.

The Last Gold Digger...

Our final film of the season is also the final film of the "Step Up" franchise, and it's a film that ties up many of the threads that have followed us through this exploration of Depression/Comedy.

Like the other Step Up instalments (or indeed the Busby Berkeley films) the plot of this one is almost too basic to relate: our heroes must once again compete in a cut-throat dance competition, this time in Las Vegas. 

Once again they must overcome external threats and personal demons, but this time the ultimate prize is something more valuable than a lump of cash. They're fighting for steady employment.

This is something that virtually any character from a 1930s movie would recognise. 

From Deanna Durbin to Claudette Colbert to Ginger Rogers, the ambition of 1930s protagonists is not to meet the right guy and live happily ever after in some fairy-tale flight of fancy (you're probably thinking of 1950s movies). They want to be able to support themselves by doing what they love... and that is something that is very elusive in times of hardship, income inequality and, well, Depression.

If this final Step Up film has a theme, that is the theme. The "Miami" instalment had ended with the troupe landing a lucrative contract to do a high-profile Nike commercial, but what they're after in Las Vegas is long-term job security.

Dancers don't generally have long careers, even if they make it at all, and most professional dancers will have started when they were very young. 

Anyone following the news over the last week or so will probably be aware of the stories about the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing controversy (sandwiched in between Biden's retirement, Trump's booboo and assorted Death, Destruction & Hate around the world). 

Various contestants on the show have complained about the way they were treated by the professional dancers assigned to train them. While I have no idea what went on during these rehearsal sessions, I do know what professional dancers put themselves through as a matter of course, and it generally isn't pretty. 

Dancers regularly push their own bodies well beyond any ordinary limitations, and everyone who has attempted to dance at a professional level will have stories about bruises, pulled tendons, permanent injuries, bleeding feet etc, always with the ultimate goal of making it look "effortless" and "spontaneous".

It probably isn't surprising that the amateurs who are selected for these "Reality" shows are completely unprepared for the stresses and demands that are imposed upon them by the professionals who will probably have been doing this sort of thing to themselves since they were children.

Dancing at this level is not something you can "dabble" in, and dancers will push themselves far beyond their own breaking point in the (often vain) hope of getting noticed by a casting director, a theatre manager or a Broadway producer.

This is the side of dancing that you don't see in most of the beloved Hollywood musicals. But it's front and centre in the 1930s Busby Berkeley films. And in the "Step Up" franchise.

We will screen Step Up: All In at 7.30 on Thursday, the 1st of August at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.

Please note that this will be our final film screening of the Summer. We are going to take a break in August, but we'll be returning in September for a brand new series of films. Stay tuned!