The Music Machine | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ian Sharp |
Written by | James Kenelm Clarke additional dialogue Alan Drury Roger Headey Terry Wilton |
Produced by | Brian Smedley-Aston executive James Kenelm Clarke |
Starring | Gerry Sundquist Patti Boulaye |
Distributed by | Target International |
Release date |
|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $500,000 [1] or £125,000 [2] |
The Music Machine is a 1979 British musical drama film directed by Ian Sharp and starring Gerry Sundquist, Patti Boulaye and David Easter. [3]
It was called the first all-British disco film. [1]
In a north London music hall, local kids dance at the disco, where the DJ is Laurie. A contest is held by an impresario (Hector Woodville) to find two dancers to star in a film. Gerry is a club regular who lives with his mum and dad (a projectionist). Gerry wants to impress another dancer (Mandy Perryment) and winds up dancing with Claire. He is double-crossed by manager Nick Dryden.
Director Ian Sharp was working at the BBC as a documentary filmmaker. They gave him a three-month sabbatical to make the movie, which Sharp says ignited his interest in working in drama. [4]
The film's star Gerry Sundquist was best known for his work in the National Theatre and was cast even though he could not dance. "It all happened so quickly," he later said. "I couldn't believe it. I was a bit worried at first - it's not exactly Richard the Third is it?... It's about a boy who is really untogether at the beginning. He's got lots of energy and zitz and he wants to be the greatest in a dance competition. But he's like me - he's got two left feet." [1]
Sunquist did intensive training to be able to dance. [1] The film was shot over three weeks. [2]
The Guardian said the film "limps a bit" but "does have some life about it. It isn't as atrocious as it could have been... The trouble is the dancing is actually pretty awful." [2]
The Observer criticised the "poor music and the truly terrible dancing" but thought "several things combine to make it [the film] oddly likeable - the unglamorous view of teenage camaraderie, the unforced affection of Gerry's relationship with his parents, and some odd quirky scenes here and there." [5]
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.
Mandel "Mandy" Bruce Patinkin is an American actor and singer, known for his work in musical theatre, television, and film. As a critically acclaimed Broadway performer he has collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Patinkin's leading roles on stage and screen have received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for seven Drama Desk Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
The Club is a satirical film based on the play of the same name by the Australian playwright and dramatist David Williamson. It follows the fortunes of an Australian rules football club over the course of a season, and explores the clashes of individuals from within the club. It was inspired by the backroom dealings and antics of the Victorian Football League's Collingwood Football Club.
Kim Fields Morgan is an American actress and director. She first gained fame as a child actress on the television series Good Times (1978–1979), and rose to greater prominence for her role as Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey in the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1979–1981), as well as its spin-off The Facts of Life (1979–1988).
Brendan Michael Perry is a British singer and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as half of the duo Dead Can Dance with Lisa Gerrard.
Hans Hugo Harold Faltermeyer is a German musician, composer and record producer.
Dance Club Songs was a chart published weekly between 1976 and 2020 by Billboard magazine. It used club disc jockeys set lists to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the United States.
Patricia Ngozi Komlosy OBE, known professionally as Patti Boulaye, is a British-Nigerian singer, actress and artist who rose to prominence after winning New Faces in 1978 and was among the leading black British entertainers in the 1970s and 1980s. In her native Nigeria she is best remembered for starring in Lux commercials and Bisi, Daughter of the River, as well as her own series, The Patti Boulaye Show.
The Stud is a 1978 British drama film directed by Quentin Masters and starring Joan Collins and Oliver Tobias. It is based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Collins's younger sister Jackie Collins.
Ruby Flipper were a multiracial, mixed-sex dance troupe who performed dance routines to songs in the UK Singles Chart on the BBC television series Top of the Pops in 1976.
Gerald Christopher Sundquist was an English actor.
"Like a Motorway" is a song by British pop group Saint Etienne. It appears on their third album, Tiger Bay (1994) and was released as a single by Heavenly Records in May 1994, reaching number 47 on the UK Singles Chart and number 13 on the UK Dance Singles Chart. The US release of Tiger Bay also features an "alternate version" with more complex percussion and electric guitar stings. It also appears on the original soundtrack for the 1994 film Speed, although the single is never heard in the actual film itself.
Ivan Král was a Czech-born American composer, filmmaker, guitarist, record producer, bassist, and singer-songwriter. He worked across genres including pop music, punk rock, garage rock, rock, jazz, soul, country and film scores. His music has been recorded by such artists as U2, Téléphone, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Simple Minds, and John Waite, among others, and he won three times at the Anděl Awards. He died of cancer in 2020, aged 71.
Hussy is a 1980 British film starring Helen Mirren, John Shea, and Paul Angelis, and directed by Matthew Chapman.
Honey 2 is a 2011 American dance film and a sequel to the 2003 film Honey, directed by Bille Woodruff, who directed the original film. It stars Kat Graham, Randy Wayne, Seychelle Gabriel and Lonette McKee, reprising her role as Connie Daniels, the mother of Honey Daniels from the first film. The film was released to cinemas in United Kingdom on June 10, 2011, and straight-to-video in the United States on February 21, 2012, on DVD and Blu-ray.
Hurrah was a nightclub located at 36 West 62nd Street in New York City from 1976 until early 1981. Hurrah was the first large dance club in NYC to feature punk, new wave, no wave and Industrial music. The in-house DJs at Hurrah were Sara Salir, Bill Bahlman, Bart Dorsey and Anita Sarko. Under the management of Henry Schissler, and later Jim Fouratt, it became known as the first "rock disco" in New York, and pioneered the use of music videos in nightclubs, placing video monitors around the club, over a year before the launch of MTV. The club was owned by Arthur Weinstein and his partners, who opened the club in November 1976, months before Studio 54.
The Club is a satirical play by the Australian playwright David Williamson. It follows the fortunes of an Australian rules football club over the course of a season, and explores the clashes of individuals from within the club. It was inspired by the backroom dealings and antics of the Victorian Football League's Collingwood Football Club.
Paper Recordings is a Manchester based record company. It released electronic dance music from an international roster of recording artists and music producers that integrated the genres of house, funk, jazz, techno and soul. According to Mixmag and The Quietus it was part of the UK Nu-disco genre in the late 1990s and 2000s along with record labels Nuphonic, Glasgow Underground Recordings and Leeds based, 20/20 Vision recordings.