Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Girls Just Want to Have Fun Blu-ray Movie Review

Dancing with Future Stars

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 21, 2012

Once upon a time, low-budget film legend Roger Corman founded a company called New World Pictures. In its heyday, it owned Marvel Comics, bought the company now known as Lionsgate Films, and helped start the Fox TV network. But today no one hears about New World except when the logo pops up attached to a film like Girls Just Want to Have Fun, an obscure 1985 trifle that's worth watching primarily because its lead players, Helen Hunt and Sarah Jessica Parker, grew up to be stars. (Shannen Doherty, who has a smaller part, also grew up to be famous, but not for her talent.) The movie doesn't amount to much, but Hunt and Parker already display the indefinable quality that draws your eye to them whenever they're onscreen. The rest of the cast doesn't stand a chance. Lee Montgomery, who plays the "ooh, he's cute!" love interest, had been acting in movies since childhood and had starred in Ben, the successful sequel to the killer rat movie Willard, but Hunt and Parker blow him off the screen.

The film was so cheaply made that it used the Cyndi Lauper hit for its title, but not Lauper's recording, because it cost less to record a cover version by an unknown. The script was cobbled together from spare parts lifted from obvious sources like Saturday Night Fever (appropriately sanitized), Fame (ditto), Footloose and Flashdance, and there are moments when the film almost feels like a throwback to Sixties beach blanket musicals, but relocated to an urban setting and shot like an Eighties music video. Appropriately enough, the screenwriter, Amy Spies, would later write for both Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. The director, Alan Metter, went on to direct Rodney Dangerfield in his best starring vehicle, Back to School.

Janey Glenn (Parker) introduces herself to the class at the latest Catholic school in which her father's military career has landed her, only this time she's there for the long haul. Colonel Glenn (Ed Lauter) has retired and settled with his wife (Margaret Howell), son and daughter in Chicago, which just happens to be the home of Janey's favorite television show, Dance TV, where teen couples perform acrobatic moves overseen by an airblown host with an English accent that comes and goes (Richard Blade).

On her very first day, Janey is befriended by Lynne Stone (Helen Hunt), the school's most rebellious blonde and also a devoted Dance TV fan. Watching the show together at Lynne's after-school babysitting job ("They have a 25-inch screen!"), the new BFFs are thrilled at the announcement of Dance TV's upcoming contest open to anyone who shows up. First prize to the winning couple: a permanent spot on the show.

The road to the contest is the film's story, but obstacles lie in our heroines' path. First, obviously, there's Janey's father, who has strict rules on when and where his daughter can go out in the evening (basically, "never" and "nowhere"). Janey's preparation and rehearsal require a series of increasingly elaborate maneuvers and far-fetched excuses that, even with Lynne's assistance, are frequently thwarted, leaving Janey stuck at home and her partner cooling his heels.

Did I say "partner"? That's another big obstacle right there, though it eventually works out. Purely by chance, Janey ends up paired with Jeff Malene (Montgomery), a hotshot dancer from a local public school who's full of himself (aren't they all?). But Jeff has his own parental problems. Mr. Malene (Biff Yeager) has a factory job and wants his son to start getting serious about learning a trade and doing something practical with his life. But Jeff gets plenty of encouragement and support from his younger sister, Maggie (Doherty), and his entrepreneurial friend, Drew (a baby-faced Jonathan Silverman). Then Janey enters the picture. The two can't stand each other, clash constantly and challenge each other over every dance move—or, in other words, they're fated to fall in love. It certainly helps that they're both fabulous dancers and gymnasts (or at least their body doubles are).

Every good story needs a villain, or in this case a villainess, in the person of Natalie Sands (Holly Gagnier), a spoiled rich girl whose every whim is indulged by her doting father, J.P. Sands (Morgan Woodward). Natalie's latest heart's desire is to win the Dance TV contest, and she's already pushed Lynne aside at the tryouts by getting Lynne's partner to trip her up. Now Natalie has her sights on Janey, and when Natalie's charms alone aren't enough to persuade Jeff to her cause, she calls in Daddy's money. First, she invites Jeff to a party at their posh club, but young Maggie shows the invitation to Lynne and Janey, which leads to the film's most entertainingly surreal sequence, in which the girls copy the invitation (heavy embossed stock and all) and distribute it widely among the outré denizens of Chicago's seedy downtown district. This motley crew of straight, gay and undefined hard-partying merrymakers crashes the sedate Sands affair, and chaos ensues, while Lynne, Janey and Maggie watch from outside (and these girls are definitely having fun).

Things threaten to get serious, though, when Mr. Sands, who owns the factory where Jeff's father works, threatens to fire him unless Jeff drops out. But this is movie-land, where dads always say, "To hell with the paycheck! I support my kid." Even Colonel Glenn's new security system is no match for a teenager's need to dance. Jeff shows up, Janey makes it just in time, and the contest goes forward as planned. It's lively and colorful, and guess who wins? Even Lynne finds a way to come out on top.

Former DJ Terry McGovern plays Ira, the producer of Dance TV. I used to listen to McGovern's show on station KSAN in San Francisco, but I could never understand it when he started showing up in movies. He's a walking demonstration of the phrase "a face made for radio".

Girls Just Want to Have Fun Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Girls Just Want to Have Fun was just shot quickly and cheaply, and it looks it. (The cinematographer was Thomas Ackerman, who was certainly capable of providing a rich, polished image when given sufficient time and budget, as he demonstrated a few years later shooting Beetlejuice for Tim Burton.) The source material for Image Entertainment's 1080i, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is in relatively good shape, with little in the way of scratches or print damage, but the image is only moderately sharp, and detail is only fair (though it is substantially better than what one would expect on a DVD). Blacks tend to be slightly crushed, and detail suffers in darker areas of the frame, but I suspect this is a flaw in the lighting and exposure of the original photography. Colors are on the dull side, even when it comes to the dance costumes, where one would expect intensity and heavy saturation. Grain is plentiful, especially during the opening title sequence with its optical superimpositions, and there is certainly no evidence of detail-stripping or high-frequency filtering. To the extent the image lacks sharpness and definition, this is a function of either the original photography or the quality of the source material (or both), and no attempt has been made to compensate by artificial sharpening. The film runs only 87 minutes, and with no extras other than a trailer, compression artifacts are not an issue.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's credits indicate that it was released in Dolby Stereo. Although the Blu-ray's jacket indicates "Dolby Digital Mono", in fact the soundtrack is PCM stereo, and it is possible to hear some degree of separation between left and right channels, but this is almost entirely limited to the musical selections. When played through a matrix decoder, the remainder of the left and right channels collapses toward the center, effectively rendering them as mono. It's a serviceable mix, with clear dialogue and decent dynamic range. The musical selections sound as good as an Eighties-vintage pre-CD recording.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (SD; 1.33:1; 1:26): Many of the best lines are in the trailer, but it does capture the tone of the film.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you remember the film or the era, this Blu-ray is an acceptable rendering as long you aren't expecting miracles from a low-budget source. If all you know is the names "Helen Hunt", "Sarah Jessica Parker" and "Shannen Doherty" on the cover, then beware—the film on this disc bears almost no resemblance to any of the work for which these three are famous. With those caveats, the Blu-ray is recommended as a faithful presentation of a rare curiosity from a bygone day.