Flashdance on DVD

Another music and dance flick from the late 70’s/early 80’s era, Flashdance is the story of a young welder who dreams of becoming a professional dancer but lacks the confidence to try.

Jennifer Beals is Alex Owens, welder by day and night club dancer by night. She also hangs around with an old dancer who offers her encouragement to follow her dream, but she never gets around to actually auditioning.

Her confidence gets a big boost after she begins dating her boss (Michael Nouri), a rich guy who’s a real catch. But when she eventually screws up the nerve to apply for an audition with the local dance troupe her Prince Charming goes behind her back and pulls in a favor that ensures she gets the audition. He doesn’t stack the audition for her, just makes sure she gets her chance - but when she finds out she’s outraged and this threatens to break up their relationship.

In the end, of course, she goes to the audition and all works out as happily as one would want.

It’s a pretty superficial plot, but the real stars of this movie (besides Beals, who’s quite good as Alex) are the music and the dancing. The soundtrack, as with Saturday Night Fever and Footloose, was a big hit and helped propel the success of the movie.

The DVD does it justice, though in places the picture’s a tad grainy. Overall, however, the anamorphic widescreen (16x9 TV compatible) picture is very good, with wonderfully rich colors and good detail. The audio has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 and though there isn’t a lot of surround, it’s pretty good. As with some of Paramount’s other recent musical releases such as Saturday Night Fever, they appear to have remastered the songs to better exploit today’s better sound, and this is a good thing.

Unfortunately, Paramount has also chosen not to include any extras on the disc.

Flashdance, from Paramount Home Video
94 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1
Starring Jennifer Beals, Michael Nouri, Belinda Bauer
Produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer
Written by Tom Hedley and Joe Eszterhas, directed by Adrian Lyne

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