(1985) Based on one of Broadway's longest-running musicals (score by Marvin Hamlisch) of an audition for a Broadway show - If you get a part, you've got something, you're somewhere - in director Richard Attenborough's stagy movie, the actors as dancers never make the transition from being performers to natural-sounding individuals.

"I don't mind being treated like puppets," says a hopeful of Zach (Michael Douglas) the director, winnowing scores of contestants down to four boys and four girls, "but worms?" As Zach's assistant Larry (Terrance Mann) takes them through their paces, they singing about their feelings: "God, I hope I get it … I need this job."

Unexpectedly Cassie (Alyson Reed), Zach's former flame and one-time top dancer, appears (out of work for a year), having left for Hollywood awhile back, begging for a chance to dance; but Zach out of spite refuses to reconsider, telling her to get out.

Each of the finalists is asked for an oral résumé, why and how he or she began dancing - referring to how he watched his sister taking lessons, Mike Cass (Charles McGowan) demonstrates in a humorous piece "I can do that"; Sheila Bryant (Vicki Frederick) announces that watching The Red Shoes changed her life, letting her escape through ballet from her dysfunctional parents - plus personal details of terrible childhoods.

Harsh and impassive, Zach demands honesty about themselves: 17-year-old Mark Tobori (Michael Blevins) from Tempe, Arizona, says he told his priest he had gonorrhea when he was twelve after having a wet dream and reading a clinical book about human sexual reproduction; Greg Gardner (Justin Ross), Jewish, reveals how he discovered he was gay; Richie Walters (Gregg Burge), black, proclaims how special his first sexual experience was with a girl in a graveyard.

Waiting upstairs where Larry asked her to stay out of the way, Cassie flashes back to her earlier relationship with Zach. The dancers continue their personal stories: Don (Blane Savage) is a waiter with a wife and two kids; Diana Morales (Yamil Borges), Puerto Rican, says her instructor told her, "You'll never be an actress"; Paul San Marco (Cameron English), also Puerto Rican with an Italian stage name, won't talk about his sister's death but confesses to being gay; Val Clarke (Audrey Landers), blonde, narrates in song her coming to New York to be a Rockette at Radio City but was judged ("Dance, 10, Looks, 3") unattractive, so she got "tits and ass" ("orchestra and balcony") to "fix the chassis," changing her life.

What comes after dancing, Zach asks: babies? No more dieting, says Connie Wong (Jan Gan Boyd) … real life. In leotards Cassie ("She's the one") reappears on the stage, ignoring Zach's attempts to convince her she's "too good" for a part in a chorus line.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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