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Footloose

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For other topics with the same name, see Footloose (disambiguation).

Footloose
Theatrical release poster
Directed byHerbert Ross
Written byDean Pitchford
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyRic Waite
Edited byPaul Hirsch
Music by
Production
company
IndieProd
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • February 17, 1984 (1984-02-17)
Running time
107 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$7.5 million[2]
Box office$80 million (domestic)[3]

Footloose is a 1984 American musical[4] drama film directed by Herbert Ross and written by Dean Pitchford. It tells the story of Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon), a teenager from Chicago who moves to a small town, where he attempts to overturn the ban on dancing instituted by the efforts of a local minister (John Lithgow).

The film was released on February 17, 1984, by Paramount Pictures, and received mixed reviews from the critics and was a box office success, grossing $80 million in North America, becoming the seventh highest-grossing film of 1984. The songs "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Plot

[edit]

Chicago native Ren McCormack and his mother Ethel move to the small town of Bomont, Utah to live with Ren's aunt and uncle. While attending church, he meets Reverend Shaw Moore, his wife Vi, and their daughter Ariel. Ariel rebels against her father's strict religious nature and behaves recklessly.

At school, Ren befriends Willard Hewitt. He soon learns that the town council has banned dancing and rock music within the town boundary. Ren soon falls for Ariel, angering her boyfriend, Chuck Cranston, who challenges him to a game of chicken involving tractors. Ren wins the challenge but only because his shoelace got caught on the foot pedal so he couldn't jump off.

Distrusting Ren's influence, Reverend Moore forbids Ariel from seeing him. Ren drives Willard, Ariel, and her friend, Rusty, to a bar past the state line to go dancing. Willard, unable to dance, becomes jealous and gets into a fight with a man dancing with Rusty.

On the drive home, Ariel describes how, five years earlier, her older brother died in a car accident after a night of alcohol and dancing. Their father then persuaded the town council to enact strict anti-liquor, anti-drug, and anti-dance laws. Ren decides to challenge the anti-dancing and rock music ordinance so the high school can hold a senior prom.

Willard is embarrassed he cannot dance, so Ren teaches him. Chuck confronts Ariel about her feelings towards Ren and they get into a physical altercation before breaking up. Ren helps Ariel conceal the physical assault before going home, cementing their relationship.

Later that night, someone throws a brick with the words, "Burn in Hell," through a window at Ren's house. When his uncle criticizes Ren's outspoken behavior, Ethel tells Ren that though his actions cost her her job, he should stand up for what he believes is right.

With Ariel's help, Ren goes before the town council to advocate revoking the anti-dancing law. He reads several Bible verses and cites the scriptural significance of dancing as a way to rejoice, exercise, and celebrate. Although Reverend Moore is moved, the council votes against Ren's proposal. Vi, who supports the movement, tells Moore that he cannot be everyone's father and is hardly one to Ariel.

Despite further discussion with Ren about his own family losses and Ariel telling her father she is not a virgin, Rev. Moore does not change his stance. The next day, he finds members of his congregation burning library books that they claim to endanger the town's youth. Realizing the situation has become uncontrollable, Moore stops the book burners, chastises them, and sends them home.

The following Sunday, Reverend Moore asks his congregation to pray for the high school students putting on the prom, being held in a grain mill just yards over the county line and beyond Bomont's jurisdiction. On prom night, Moore and Vi listen from outside the mill. Chuck and his friends arrive, attacking Willard; Ren arrives in time to even the odds and knocks out Chuck. Ren, Ariel, Willard, and Rusty rejoin the party and happily dance the night away.

Cast

[edit]

Production

[edit]

Dean Pitchford came up with the idea for Footloose in 1979 and teamed up with Daniel Melnick's IndieProd who set the production up at 20th Century Fox in 1981.[6][2] Pitchford wrote the screenplay (his first) and most of the lyrics however, Fox put it into turnaround.[2] In 1982, Paramount Pictures made a pay-or-play deal for the film.[2] When negotiations with Herbert Ross initially stalled, Ron Howard was approached to direct the film but he turned it down to direct Splash instead.[7] Michael Cimino was hired by Paramount to direct the film, his first film since Heaven's Gate.[2]

After a month of working on the film, the studio fired Cimino, who was making extravagant demands for the production, including demanding an additional $250,000 for his work, and ended up hiring Ross.[2][8]

Casting

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Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe were both slated to play the lead. The producers were impressed with Cruise because of the famous underwear dance sequence in Risky Business, but he was unavailable for the part because he was filming All the Right Moves. Lowe auditioned three times and had the dancing ability and the "neutral teen" look that the director wanted, but injury prevented him from taking the part.[9][10] Christopher Atkins claims that he was cast as Ren, but lost the role.[11] Bacon had been offered the main role for the Stephen King film Christine at the same time that he was asked to do the screen test for Footloose. He chose to take the gamble on the screen test. After watching his earlier film Diner, the director persuaded the producers to go with Bacon.

The film also stars Lori Singer as Reverend Moore's independent daughter Ariel, a role for which Madonna and Haviland Morris[12] also auditioned. Valerie Bertinelli and Jennifer Jason Leigh were also considered.[13] Dianne Wiest appears as Vi, the Reverend's devoted yet conflicted wife.

Tracy Nelson was considered for the role of Rusty.[14]

Filming

[edit]

Principal photography began on May 9, 1983, and took place at various locations in Utah County, Utah.[2] The high school and tractor scenes were filmed in and around Payson and Payson High School. The church scenes were filmed at the First Presbyterian Church in American Fork,[15] while the steel mill was the Geneva Steel facility in Vineyard[16] and The Lehi Roller Mills were the location where Bacon's character worked (Bacon briefly worked at the roller mill as research for his performance[17]). The drive-in scenes were filmed in Provo at what was then a branch of the Hi-Spot burger chain.[18] The restaurant chain closed in the late 1980s, and there is now an auto parts store at that location. The bar scene was filmed at The Silver Spur bar in downtown Provo. The bar and other surrounding buildings were demolished to make way for the Utah Valley Convention Center.[18]

For his dance scene in the warehouse, Bacon said he had four stunt doubles: "I had a stunt double, a dance double [Peter Tramm][19] and two gymnastics doubles."[20]

Film inspiration

[edit]

Footloose is loosely based on the town of Elmore City, Oklahoma. The town had banned dancing since its founding in 1898 in an attempt to decrease the amount of heavy drinking. One advocate of the dancing ban was the Reverend from the nearby town of Hennepin, F. R. Johnson. He said, "No good has ever come from a dance. If you have a dance somebody will crash it and they'll be looking for only two things—women and booze. When boys and girls hold each other, they get sexually aroused. You can believe what you want, but one thing leads to another." Because of the ban on dancing, the town never held a prom. In February 1980, the junior class of Elmore City's high school made national news when they requested permission to hold a junior prom and it was granted. The request to overturn the ban to hold the prom was met with a 2–2 decision from the school board when school board president Raymond Lee broke the tie with the words, "Let 'em dance."[21]

Soundtrack

[edit]
Main article: Footloose (1984 soundtrack)

The soundtrack was released in cassette, 8-track tape, vinyl, reel-to-reel and CD format. The 1984 open reel release was among the last commercial releases on the format. The soundtrack was also re-released on CD for the 15th anniversary of the film in 1999. The re-release included four new songs: "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" by Quiet Riot, "Hurts So Good" by John Mellencamp, "Waiting for a Girl Like You" by Foreigner, and the extended 12" remix of "Dancing in the Sheets".

The album includes "Footloose" and "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)", both by Kenny Loggins, "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler (co-written and produced by Jim Steinman), "Girl Gets Around" by Sammy Hagar, "Never" by Australian rock band Moving Pictures, "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams, "Somebody's Eyes" by Karla Bonoff, "Dancing In The Sheets" by Shalamar, and the romantic theme "Almost Paradise" by Mike Reno from Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart (co-written by Eric Carmen). The soundtrack went on to sell over 9 million copies in the USA. All songs in the initial release were co-written by Pitchford based on various songwriting styles: for "Holding Out for a Hero", he listened to various songs written by Steinman such as his work with Meat Loaf and then wrote the first two lines ("Where have all the good men gone/And where are all the gods?/Where's the streetwise Hercules/To fight the rising odds?") in this manner to spark Steinman's creativity.[22]

"Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" both topped the Billboard Hot 100 and received 1985 Academy Award nominations for Best Music (Original Song).[citation needed] "Footloose" also received a 1985 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song – Motion Picture.[citation needed]

Composer Miles Goodman adapted and orchestrated the film's score.[23][24][25][26][27][28]

The music from the soundtrack was released prior to the film's premiere. The filmmakers felt that songs produced a stronger emotional response from people already familiar with them, which heightened the experience of watching the movie. The music video for "Footloose" had scenes from the movie, rather than footage of Loggins.[29]

Reception

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Critical response

[edit]

The film received mixed reviews from critics.[citation needed] Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert called it "a seriously confused movie that tries to do three things, and does all of them badly. It wants to tell the story of a conflict in a town, it wants to introduce some flashy teenage characters and part of the time it wants to be a music video."[30] Dave Denby in New York rechristened the film "Schlockdance", writing: "Footloose may be a hit, but it's trash – high powered fodder for the teen market... The only person to come out of the film better off is the smooth-cheeked, pug-nosed Bacon, who gives a cocky but likable Mr. Cool performance."[31]

Jane Lamacraft reassessed the film for Sight and Sound's "Forgotten pleasures of the multiplex" feature in 2010, writing "Nearly three decades on, Bacon's vest-clad set-piece dance in a flour mill looks cheesily 1980s, but the rest of Ross's drama wears its age well, real song-and-dance joy for the pre-Glee generation."[32]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 55% of 47 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "There's not much dancing, but what's there is great. The rest of the time, Footloose is a nice hunk of trashy teenage cheese."[33] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 42 out of 100 based on 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[34]

Box office

[edit]

The film grossed $80,035,403 domestically. It became the seventh highest-grossing film of 1984.[3]

Accolades

[edit]
Award Category Nominee(s) Result Ref.
Academy Awards Best Original Song "Footloose"
Music and Lyrics by Kenny Loggins and Dean Pitchford 		Nominated [35]
"Let's Hear It for the Boy"
Music and Lyrics by Dean Pitchford and Tom Snow 		Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Best Original Song "Footloose"
Music and Lyrics by Kenny Loggins and Dean Pitchford 		Nominated [36]
Grammy Awards Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male "Footloose" – Kenny Loggins Nominated [37]
Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female "Let's Hear It for the Boy" – Deniece Williams Nominated
Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal "Dancing in the Sheets" – Shalamar Nominated
Best Rhythm and Blues Song "Dancing in the Sheets" – Dean Pitchford and Bill Wolfer Nominated
Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special Footloose – Various Artists
(Eric Carmen, Michael Gore, Sammy Hagar, Kenny Loggins,
Dean Pitchford, Tom Snow, Jim Steinman, and Bill Wolfer) 		Nominated
ShoWest Convention Breakthrough Performer of the Year Lori Singer Won
Young Artist Awards Best Family Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Nominated [38]
Best Young Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical, Comedy, Adventure or Drama Sarah Jessica Parker Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs

Musical adaptation

[edit]
Main article: Footloose (musical)

In 1998, a musical version of Footloose premiered.[40] Featuring many of the songs from the film, the show has been presented on London's West End, on Broadway, and elsewhere. The musical is generally faithful to the film version, with some slight differences in the story and characters.

Remake

[edit]
Main article: Footloose (2011 film)

Paramount announced plans to fast-track a remake of Footloose. The remake was written and directed by Craig Brewer. Filming started in September 2010. It was budgeted at $25 million.[41] It was released October 14, 2011.

References

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  1. ^ "Footloose (PG)". British Board of Film Classification. February 19, 1984. Archived from the original on July 26, 2015. Retrieved July 8, 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Footloose at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  3. ^ a b "Footloose (1984) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  4. ^ "Footloose (1984)". AllMovie. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  5. ^ Reynolds, Maca (September 27, 2023). "Kevin Bacon Wasn't Happy With the Fame Footloose Brought Him". MovieWeb. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  6. ^ Ginsberg, Steven. "Cimino and Melnick Working Together on 'Footloose'". Daily Variety. p. 1.
  7. ^ "15 Surprising Facts About Splash". March 16, 2016.
  8. ^ Holleran, Scott (October 12, 2004). "Shall We Footloose?". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on April 15, 2009. Retrieved May 12, 2009.
  9. ^ Wenn (January 16, 2013). "Rob Lowe: 'I refused to sing Footloose karaoke duet with Loggins". Hollywood.com. Archived from the original on March 11, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2014. Years ago I auditioned for Footloose and I blew out my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), so I have post-traumatic stress with anything having to do with Footloose.
  10. ^ https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/20-actors-who-turned-down-big-roles
  11. ^ "Atkins: I almost starred in 'Footloose'".
  12. ^ "Footloose | EW.com". Entertainment Weekly.
  13. ^ "Valerie Bertinelli Reveals Why She Was Passed over for 'Footloose' Role -- and It's a Pretty Good Reason | Entertainment Tonight". October 19, 2017.
  14. ^ "Box Office Mojo > Features > Shall We Footloose?". www.boxofficemojo.com. Archived from the original on March 5, 2006. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  15. ^ "Bomont First Christian Church – Footloose". May 25, 2019.
  16. ^ "Steel Mill – Footloose Filming Location". June 30, 2019.
  17. ^ Hyde, Jesse (October 23, 2004). "Flour mill grows up after 'Footloose'". Deseret News.
  18. ^ a b "The Hi Spot – Footloose Filming Location". June 20, 2019.
  19. ^ "Hoofers Hidden in the Shadows Dream of the Limelight". People. Time Inc. April 2, 1984. Archived from the original on March 10, 2011. Retrieved December 15, 2011.
  20. ^ Jones, Oliver (October 14, 2011). "Kevin Bacon 'Furious' over Having a Dance Double in Footloose". People. Time Inc. Archived from the original on October 16, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
  21. ^ "Dance Fever: The Town That Inspired (and Got) Footloose Oklahoma City". 405 Magazine. June 2015 [26 May 2015 (Web publication)]. Archived from the original on May 2, 2019. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
  22. ^ Wiser, Carl (March 13, 2012). "Dean Pitchford : Songwriter Interviews". Songfacts. Retrieved July 4, 2022.
  23. ^ "Miles Goodman, 47, Composer for Films". The New York Times. August 20, 1996. Archived from the original on February 21, 2015. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  24. ^ Jablon, Robert (August 18, 1996). "MILES GOODMAN, FILM COMPOSER AND JAZZ RECORD PRODUCER, DIES". Associated Press. Archived from the original on February 23, 2015. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  25. ^ Oliver, Myrna (August 20, 1996). "Miles Goodman; Record Producer, Film Composer". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on February 21, 2015. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  26. ^ "Miles Goodman: Composer". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. August 22, 1996. Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  27. ^ "Record producer, composer Miles Goodman dies at 47". The Daily Gazette. August 21, 1996. Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  28. ^ "Miles Goodman, Composer For Films". Sun-Sentinel. August 21, 1996. Archived from the original on February 23, 2015. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  29. ^ The DVD commentary
  30. ^ Roger Ebert (January 1, 1984). "Footloose". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  31. ^ Denby, David (February 27, 1984). "Schlockdance". New York. Vol. 17, no. 9. p. 60. Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
  32. ^ Lamacraft, Jane. "forgotten-pleasures-of-the-multiplex". Sight & Sound. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on November 8, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
  33. ^ "Footloose". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved February 14, 2024.
  34. ^ "Footloose (1984) Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on October 13, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  35. ^ "The 57th Academy Awards (1985) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on December 28, 2011. Retrieved October 13, 2011.
  36. ^ "Footloose". Golden Globe Awards. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  37. ^ "27th Annual GRAMMY Awards". Grammy Awards. Retrieved May 18, 2024.
  38. ^ "6th Youth in Film Awards". Young Artist Awards. Archived from the original on May 6, 2016. Retrieved March 31, 2011.
  39. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs" (PDF). American Film Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 6, 2019. Retrieved August 14, 2016.
  40. ^ Willis, John (June 1, 2002). Theatre World 1998-1999. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-55783-432-4. Archived from the original on March 21, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2016.
  41. ^ John Beifuss. "'Footloose' runs off with well-heeled suitor: Georgia". MCA. Archived from the original on April 26, 2010. Retrieved April 25, 2010.
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