The Dancing Rawleses!

After watching the most entertaining Voyage of the Rock Aliens about a month back, I became intrigued about who created the fabulous choreography, which resembled the Jane Fonda workout with extra jazz fingers. It turns out it was a couple named Dennon and Sayhber Rawles. Thanks to the handy-dandy IMDB, I discovered that they actually had a few other credits to their name. And so Gidg and I decided to sit down one evening and check out two other masterpieces of the Rawles canon: Staying Alive and Jailbird Rock.

Of course, I had seen Staying Alive before, when I was about nine years old on a double-bill at a drive-in in Indiana. I had fond memories of the big climactic dance number, "Satan's Alley" and how the oiled-up Travolta makes up his own choreography and throws over that bitchy English tramp Finola Hughes for the sweet American girl next door type, Cynthia Rhodes. Well, unfortunately, while that scene and a couple of others are worth a cheap rental, "plodding" is the correct word to describe the rest of the thing. There is some entertainment value in analyzing John Travolta's possible plastic surgery between the making of Saturday Night Fever and this one, and yes, we get plenty of shirtless scenes, showing off his long lost abs, but the film needs liberal fast forwarding to be truly enjoyable. Basically, the final dance number is what makes the movie. All kinds of headbands, legwarmers, body glitter, and, of course, JAZZ FINGERS!!! And for those who don't know, Finola Hughes went on to play the decidedly non-bitchy Police Chief Anna Devane Scorpio Lavery Scorpio Hayward on General Hospital and also showed up on Charmed as the girls' mother and even the last season of Blossom as Blossom's dad's new girlfriend. Cynthia Rhodes had a slightly less steller career but was put to good use in Dirty Dancing, playing Patrick Swayze's knocked up ex-girlfriend and also in the underrated sci-fi campfest Runaway with Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, and Kirstie Alley (uh oh, another Scientology connection...)

Far more successful was the other movie we watched that evening, Jailbird Rock. I must thank Erek at Mondo for introducing me to this one some tipsy Saturday afternoon last summer. It is a very strange hybrid (possibly the only one of its kind) of a "Let's Put On a Musical" and a Women in Prison movie. Adding to the strangeness is the fact that it was filmed in Argentina with a mostly American cast but then post-dubbed anyway. I recognized several familiar voices from Italian horror and exploitation, the most notable example being the voice of the obligatory female counselor, who has the same voice as Daria Nicolodi in Profondo Rosso and the bitchy Olga from Suspiria. I wish I knew that actress's name; she's really quite good.

Anyway, we all know the basic story: Jessie is a fun girl who just loves to dance. But one day when she comes home and finds some abusive boyfriend hitting her mother, she grabs the rifle they happen to keep in the closet and blows the bastard away. This gets her sent to juvy, and in a long sequence, we are introduced to her new friends. The frame freezes and we get titles that tell us the name, nickname, rap, and sentence of each of the other girls. Sometimes it doesn't quite make sense, because like one girl is in for 2 years for manslaughter and another gets like 4 for grand theft auto. Isn't killing someone worse? Anyway, almost immediately Jessie runs afoul of the the lamest excuse for a women's prison kingpin I've ever seen--Max--a blonde, almost pudgy thing who whines. Max and her girlfriend Echo apparently run the place, but Jessie isn't having it. Jessie gets pretty much all of the other girls on her side and decides that to raise morale they need to put on a big dance revue. If I'm not mistaken, this gets the prison a lot of positive press, and I think even some "industry" people show up for the big show. Max tries to use the show as an excuse to cover her escape, but things, predictably, go awry. While I suppose the ending is supposed to be kind of uplifting and empowering for the girls, it's not like they get released for good behavior or anything. Also, it must be mentioned that for a women in prison movie, there is surprisingly little T&A and almost no major violence to speak of. Mostly, we get psychological and thespian terrorism.

Ratings: Staying Alive--75% fastforwardability; Jailbird Rock--25% fastforwardability.
Drinks: White wine spritzers or vodka and club soda with lime--low calories to keep our dancing figures.