Review of That's Dancing! (1985) by Jacob M — 01 Jan 2014

A spinoff of the That's Entertainment movies, That's Dancing is an entertaining and informative documentary that looks into some of the best dancing sequences ever created in the musical genre. Gene Kelly describes early musical dancing and the works of Busby Berkeley, Sammy Davis Jr. talks about early acclaimed musical choreographers, such as Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers, Bojangles Robinson, and the Nicholas Brothers, plus shows a very entertaining dance sequence cut from The Wizard of Oz featuring the Ray Bolger Scarecrow, Mikhali Baryshnikov describes the impact of ballet dancers on film, "Scarecrow" Ray Bolger describes the glory days of MGM studios and it's two most successful dancing stars; Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and Liza Minnelli talks about film musicals adapted from acclaimed Broadway hits. Gene Kelly also shows up at the end talking about dancing and its impact today (or in the case in its original release, 1985), showing musical hits that brought the genre back from near-extinction, including Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance, and Fame.

It's not a perfect documentary, as some of the celebrity hosts just didn't seem to be in the spirit of the production, especially Baryshnikov, but what's great about That's Dancing is that no matter what musicals you have actually seen prior to watching this, I guarantee that you'll still have an enjoyable experience. It'll likely give some more respect to the musical genre and how talented these choreographers actually are. It also makes me want to watch more of the old Hollywood musicals, particularly those of Busby Berkeley, who had some pretty surreal cinematography for 1930's cinema. I'm glad I found this documentary.