Footlose (1984)

Two Geeks and a GIT Classic Movie Reviews

Beginning our more family-friendly dance-film Thanksgiving holiday pairing, we're beginning with one of the four major dance films of the 80s, and one that made Kevin Bacon the household name (and focus of the "Six Degress of Separation" game), 1984's "Footloose!" Directed by Herbert Ross and written by Dean Pitchford (based on an actual event), the film follows Ren McCormack (Bacon) who has just moved to a small Oklahoma town with his mother (Frances Lee McCain), and finds the environment stifling to say the least. And for a kid from the streets of Chicago, the nightlift leaves a lot to be desired, especially since he can't even dance, thanks to a town ordinance forbidding such physical expression. He quickly meets the source of the rule, Rev. Shaw Moore (John Lithgow) who rails in church about the evils of sex and alcohol, both of which he links to dancing. His zealous ideals are balanced by his strong, soft-spoken wife Vi (Dianne Wiest) and tested by his hellion daughter Ariel (Lori Singer). Add in Ren's friends Willard (Chris Penn) and Woody (John Laughlin), Ariel's best friend Rusty (Sarah Jessica Parker), Ariel's jerk ex-boyfriend Chuck Cranston (Jim Youngs) and Ren's new boss Andy (Timothy Scott) and you have all the right people for a coming-of-age story set against the small-town mindset during the Reagan years!