Synopsis
Slow dancing is falling in love.
An aging out of shape reporter falls for a pretty but seriously ill ballerina.
Slow Dancing In The Big City
1978 Directed by John G. Avildsen
Cast
Paul Sorvino Anne Ditchburn Nicolas Coster Anita Dangler Thaao Penghlis Linda Selman Héctor Mercado Susan Doukas Dick Carballo Jack Ramage Daniel Faraldo Michael Gorrin Tara Mitton Matt Russo Bill Conti Richard Jamieson Ben Slack Lloyd Kaufman Lee Steele Edward Crowley Danielle Brisebois Mimi Cecchini Dick Boccelli Anthony Avildsen Rufus Avildsen Dee Dee Friedman
Director
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Writer
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Cinematography
Assistant Directors
Camera Operator
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Art Direction
Choreography
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Costume Design
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Alternative Titles
Ballando lo slow nella grande città, 大城小调
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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USAPG
Releases by Country
USA
08 Nov 1978
- TheatricalPG
Popular reviews
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I bought a shitty TV rip from some hawker in the US and synced it to a much nicer Russian dubbed copy and threw it on Youtube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhBC7sPlFV0&feature=youtu.be
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Well John, we know you directed Rocky to world acclaim 2 years earlier in 1976. You also directed and shot Joe, a great NY character study and critical success in 1970. Oh, and directed another superior character study with Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger (1973). You directed 3 terrific screenplays by the way, with 3 great lead performances; brought them in below budget and on time. Only 2 years before auteuring Slow Dancing in the Big City, your direction had been judged better than nominees Ingmar Bergman for Face to Face, Sidney Lumet for Network, Alan J. Pakula for All the President's Men, Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties. Those Hollywood types didn't even let Martin Scorsese in the nominees…
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No hay película más maldita que la condenada al fracaso deliberadamente por sus productores y exhibidores, por los que lógicamente habrían de poner un interés más «interesado» en que fuese vista, sobre todo cuando los que así actúan con ella son los que de verdad pueden promocionar su mercancía —a menudo en detrimento de los demás, particularmente si los otros son independientes y españoles—, es decir, los representantes de las grandes multinacionales. Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978) debe haber batido un triste récord en Madrid: estrenada simultáneamente en cuatro cines poco céntricos y nada atractivos, había desaparecido de dos a los cuatro días de exhibición y de los restantes al cabo de la semana; cuando yo la vi,…
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Paul Sorvino giving cigs to 12-year-olds and then wandering into a dance drama that's way more the plot of Black Swan than I was prepared for.
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The IMDB logline is a hilariously blunt “an aging out of shape reporter falls for a pretty but seriously ill ballerina”. The giggle-inducing original tagline is “Slow Dancing is Falling in Love” which – fair, but also suggests that the title is a metaphor when truly it isn’t, they do slow dance and that city sure is big.
Earnest, old-school melodrama, predictable but satisfying. From the director of "Rocky" and "The Karate Kid". Maybe this would have worked better as a period piece, as much of the NYC and its citizens depicted here wouldn’t feel out of line in a Little Orphan Annie comic strip. The few details that try to upgrade it from scrappy to gritty come via some…
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Après le triomphe de Rocky, Avildsen a concocté une mixture somme toute assez similaire bien que moins tonitruante et axée sur une rencontre plutôt qu’un personnage.
Le film porte bien son titre. La New York de 1978 est richement incarnée. Les personnages aussi, avec chaleur et causticité.
Il y a des défauts, quelques effets hâtifs, a bit much, mais ils n’ont jamais fait basculer le film dans le deal breaker tellement ses qualités poétiques mal léchées sont fortes.
À part peut-être les trois tout derniers mots. Purée que j’aimerais les couper. On avait compris, l’histoire venait de nous le dire, pas besoin de le répéter, et puis la phrase précédente aurait fait une si parfaite, parfaite, parfaite dernière réplique.
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One top of being a great love letter to 1970s’ NYC, this is a truly gorgeous sleeper of a down-to-earth romance and character journey set to a fairytale-influenced Bill Conti score. I wish Anne Ditchburn would have made more films: She’s an absolute force of nature here.
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غریبترین فیلم کارنامهی جان جی آویلدسن یک رُمانس کوچک و دلچسب است که درست بعد از موفقیت راکی ساخته شده و گرمایش را از رابطهی گیرای بین پل سوروینوی خوش سر و زبان و شیرین در برابر ملاحت و زیبایی بکر آن دیشبرن میگیرد.
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I was sleepy when I watched this, so I'll circle back around with a proper watch and a proper review later. But I want to leave myself a note to say: when Lou is about to slap Sarah on the back, then hesitates and doesn't do it, all without her noticing? That's cinema.
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One of my favorite film discoveries of the year. John G. Avildsen’s follow-up to ROCKY (after he was removed from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER). By all accounts, a movie that was not well-received and didn’t fare well at the box office. Never received a home video release until now, finally made available by Kino Lorber on Blu-ray. Paul Sorvino plays a Jimmy Breslin-type newspaper columnist in NYC named Lou Friedlander. He’s a beloved, big-hearted, gentle chronicler of city life. When Sarah Gantz (played by Anne Ditchburn), a ballerina whose body is quitting on her, moves in next door to Lou, he falls for her. A romantic, old-fashioned melodrama that’s sweet and sentimental and full of emotion. Slow and plodding in a…
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The behavior of the lead character would never fly today. What the movie wants us to accept as charming romantic determination comes off as creepy entitlement. Add to that a misguided subplot involving some egregious stereotyping of Puerto Rican-Americans and the movie teeters on becoming reprehensible instead of the sweet, sincere-but-grounded New York romance it began as. But “it was a different time” BLAH BLAH BLAH.
Anne Ditchburn is stiff and gives some awkward line-readings, but her dancing is engaging. The best part of her performance is the way she modulates her physicality as her character struggles with her health.
I’m guessing the primary reason people would seek this out is to see the movie John G. Avildsen made after…
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Paul Sorvino has always been one of my favorite character actors, so to see him in a leading role here, even as a romantic protagonist, was something special and made the movie for me.