When it comes to dancing, I'm pretty indifferent about it unless it involves a circle pit or a private lap dance, but that's just me... a single voice adrift in an ocean full of motherfuckers who think they can dance with the stars, leaping across the stage like a vasectomized Errol Flynn on Christopher Street.Though thirty plus million of you might entertain a difference of opinion on the subject, I'm sticking to my guns over here.Thirty years ago, dancing was just as big as the silk butterfly collars and platform heels guys would throw on in hopes of scoring some trim from a hot-to-trot chick with a Dorothy Hamill hairdo and a rayon jumpsuit, and disco still hadn't officially flatlined at the outset of the decade, enjoying a late surge with the 'roller disco' phenomenon, as evidenced by Linda Blair's Roller Boogie(1979) effort and Skatetown U.S.A. the same year.Tonight's entry started out as a cash-in attempt on that particular craze, but veered off into fantasy/musical waters before the project's completion instead, and the rest, as they say, is a failure of truly epic fucking proportions.With Travolta unavailable for the lead male role, the producers turned to Michael Beck, of The Warriors(1979) fame.Also lending his legendary twinkletoes to the production was singer/dancer extraordinaire, Gene Kelly, who shakes his aging groove thing to a soundtrack(an admittedly pretty killer one) provided by E.L.O. frontman Jeff Lynne, whose afro was not a thing easily scoffed at.I'm overjoyed at the fact that I was too young to have had to bear witness to this ham-fisted craptacular on a date/feelings endurance test with some eager makeout recipient, and I pass on to you that, unless you're a skirt-wearing Mary or some other such frail pansy, you're not gonna enjoy Xanadu's hokey Tron-esque neon visual effects or roller disco romance very much.
By Crom, what manner of neon-aura surrounds you as you boogie, Valeria?!!
A starving artist named Sonny(Michael Beck) chucks his latest failure out a window where the wind catches and carries it into an alleyway adorned by an intricate mural of the Nine Greek Muses that suddenly comes to neon-enshrouded life to Solid Gold-style boogie to E.L.O. tunes.Among these inspirational beauties is Kira(Olivia Newton-John), who teleports into Sonny's life as a ball of light, appearing to him as a roller skater on the boardwalk and the subject of album art he's been hired on to reproduce and enlarge.While beachcombing, he bumps into a clarinet-blowing dotard with a gleam in his eye, named Danny McGuire(Gene Kelly), before spotting his rollerskating reverie, and stalking her to the condemned Pan Pacific Auditorium, where he can observe her practicing her skate routines from the shadows, all creepy-like.Before too long, the old guy is inviting Sonny back to his mansion to listen to records and reminisce about his glory days in the big band jazz era, segueing into a musical number where Danny cuts the choreographed rug with some transparent ghosts, one of which bears a striking resemblance to Sonny's love interest, Kira.If that sequence didn't give you diabetes mellitus, Kira soon accompanies Sonny to a soundstage dressed with various hokey props for use in a Peter Pannishly embarrassing display of rollerskateage-on-wires.They return to the Auditorium, where Kira suggests the building could be the perfect location for the nightclub the old man's been kicking ideas of opening up around."I think this place could be anything you want it to be.", she says, although I must have missed the part where she adds, "...even a gaudy roller disco!"
I've got my mallet raised, the gong's in plain sight...
When Sonny shows the place to Danny, it cues another lengthy musical number, this time a forties big band is contrasted against an eighties new wave outfit, headed by Tubes frontman Fee Waybill in an orange jumpsuit, before the whole event turns up into a crazy mixed-up party exactly how you thought it might have!Kira suggests the name Xanadu and the couple goes off to celebrate Sonny's new partnership with Danny, and when they kiss they're magically transformed into Don Bluth-style animated fish and lovebirds after frollicking atop a rosebud.One musical ridiculous outfit-changing montage for Danny later, and Xanadu is open for business.Kira confesses that she's a Greek Muse who's fallen in love with a mortal then teleports back to Olympus.Sonny discovers the alley with the mural from the opening while rollerskating, and skates directly through it, a portal to the gods that preside over Neon Heaven, where Zeus denies Sonny's pleas for one more night of mortality for his love.Back at the club, the geryatric Danny leads a rollerskate chorus line of jagoffs around the place while jugglers chuck bowling pins at him amidst the heavy boogieing of surrounding disco dancers.Kira emerges, apparently on heavenly reprieve, to sing several songs complete with intricate costume change gamut(why is it, that any Olivia Newton-John movie of the era felt it necessary to transform her from wholesome sweetheart to skeevy slut by the final reel?Any ideas?) run from eighties satin baseball jacket to fringey cowgirl to cheap prostitute, before being abruptly zapped back to Olympus.Bummed that his muse chose to boogie in a beaded wig rather than lay the otherworldly snatch on him on her final night on earth, Sonny is alerted to a cocktail waitress who looks like...no, it couldn't be.Awwwww, isn't that a cute story?Yeah, I'll be french-kissing a pail over in the corner, if you're looking for me.
He's professing eternal love to you from atop a rose's petals, that pussy.
After directing this stink-loaf, Greenwald helmed the legendary 1984 NBC spousal abuse telepic, The Burning Bed, with Farrah Fawcett and Paul Le Mat, before spinning off out of control in a tragically left-wing documentary sort of way.Newton-John would pair up again with Travolta in 1983's Two of a Kind, another romantic fantasy movie I don't care if I ever see, to be honest with you.Pittsburgh native Kelly would follow up his return to the marquee here with a two part episode of the Love Boat.Four years later.Beck would reprise his role as Swan in The Warriors in 2005 voicing the part for the movie-based video game.This was the first time I'd seen this thing since the cable box days, and even under severely altered states, it hurt like a bitch to get all the way through.On the scale, one lousy Wop for the groovy soundtrack.There's not even one stinking boob in the whole movie.Steer clear.
This screencap takes me back to certain booze-drenched 80's dance-offs in Emmaus.
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