| The In Crowd | |
|---|---|
VHS cover |
|
| Directed by | Mark Rosenthal |
| Produced by | Keith Rubinstein John F. Roach Jeff Franklin |
| Written by | Lawrence Konner Mark Rosenthal |
| Starring | Donovan Leich Joe Pantoliano |
| Music by | Mark Snow |
| Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond |
| Editing by | Jeffrey Wolf |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures Corporation |
| Release date(s) | February 13, 1988 |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $124,880 (USA) |
The In Crowd is a 1988 film directed by Mark Rosenthal and written by Rosenthal and his long time writing partner Lawrence Konner. The period piece set in the 1960s features music of the era, including "Land of a Thousand Dances" and the instrumental "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" by Vince Guaraldi.[1]
Contents |
Perry Parker (Joe Pantoliano) is a Philadelphia dance-show host who hopes to replace Dick Clark after Clark leaves for Hollywood. Del Green (Donovan Leitch) is an honors student, highly motivated, who’s dream is to dance on the Perry Parker show with Vicky (Jennifer Runyon). Vicky is a the blond parochial school student, and the shows most popular dancer. One afternoon Del bets his school friends that he will indeed dance with ‘The In Crowd’. The day he chooses happens to be Dugan’s (Scott Plank) first day of banishment. He uses some trickery to get thru the stage door security goons and sneaks into the pre-show dressing room where the ‘in crowd’ muster. He’s new but not yet a threat to this self-centered group. Vicky shows up late.
With the loss of their star male dancer, Dugan, Perry enters the dressing room with a ‘heavy heart’ and a need for one of the other boys to step up and replace Dugan as Vickie’s partner. Del jumps into the breach, combs his hair and gets a smile from Vicky, and threatening faces from the others. His first appearance is a big hit. TV cameras follow him and his more than adequate dancing with his smiling partner Vicky. The ‘in crowd’ now a bit jealous try to sabotage him during a line dance, but Dell dances his way out of harms way. His friends all watching from home can’t really believe that Del is so hip, cool and ‘alive’ while dancing. The shows audience of young teens really take a likening to Dell and aren’t a bit set back at Dugan’s demise. The show’s ratings go up and the management likes the new lead dancer, Del is a new member of the ‘In Crowd’.
Perry tells the cast to include Del in all their evening and daytime group outings, and Del agrees to even pick up Vicky at her home. Vicky agrees though she has ulterior motives. Del’s visits Vicky and her mom is in a cloud and sort of floats in time. Her is Tiny, a policeman and later is happy to see a smart college bound young man, a welcome change from Dugan. Del’s first evening, the group meets at the Germantown Train Station, Vicky sneaks away with Dugan, while the ‘In Crowd’ puts Del through a Miller beer shower initiation ceremony, an edgy, ruff experience that Del handles very well. Later Vicky returns, Del takes her home and Tiny forces her to give him a goodnight kiss. A good time was had by all. Del is now a full-fledged ‘In Crowd’ member.
Next day, Perry Parker and a couple of his muscle men, disrupt Del’s American English Class where Perry ends up leading the discussion of a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ with the theme of ‘Dying for Love’. Perry does a layman's rendition of the immensity of dying for love versus his teens just ‘feeling like they could die for love’. His thoughts impress the English teacher and show just how ‘in tune’ Perry is with his teens and his audience. Del is dragged out to the car to ogle the hundreds of adoring fan letters sent to him in care of the show. He is offered, ‘payola, extra money’ for playing a bigger role in that day’s show. He gets to do the ‘Lover’s Only’ spotlight dance with Vicky, another big hit for the show and with the home fans and stage audience as well.
There are several outings with the ‘In Crowd’, one is on a Philly bus in the market area, lots of dancing, sight gags, teens being teens and the locals joining in with their own dance routines. Good scenes, somewhat in the tradition of the Beatles in a ‘Hard Days Night’. Vicky and Del are pushed together by show bizz necessity, and they become close, but still there’s Dugan lurking and scheming in the background.
A key daytime outing was to the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey. We see Del and Vicky dressed in wedding costumes and being shown with the Wildwood teens going from business to business on the boardwalk. Perry melts down at a caricature of Dick Clark and has Morris ( Bruce Kirby ) pay for the destruction of all the drawings. After a photo shoot at Carmines in their Tux and Wedding gown, Del and Vicky meet with the crowd of teens at the end of the pier. Here teens buy record albums so they can be part of a multiplication dance with Del and Vicky. During the middle of the song, Moon River, Del abandons his partner and walks over to invite a young girl to dance with him. She’s younger than the others, very pretty, dark hair, big eyes and a smile soon to melt everyone’s heart. She’s very shy, and doesn’t feel she can slow dance. She wears a leg brace and has an awkward limp. Del ignores her fear, takes her by both hands, walks to the center of the dance floor and starts dancing. Everyone is stunned at this generous and gracious dance offer by Del. Everyone stalls, stares and smiles at the dancing couple, some swoon. Del and his young partner lean into each other and she puts her head on his chest, smiles and becomes a magical dance partner. One beautifully happy girl becomes the perfect Wildwood teen, her smile seems as large as Del's heart. It’s a perfect dance scene, the music, the teens all vicariously dancing along with Dell and the young girl.
Del returns Vicky home in the rain and at his home finds an open front door. Dugan is there, to challenge Del on his relationship with Vicki. He turns on the stereo, and they have a dance off right there in the living room, each trying to out dance the other, leaps, turning over the sofa, and tumbling off the walls. It ends in a stalemate where both fall back onto the sofa. Dugan opens up with his bigger than life plans to go to California and become a movie star. He struggles with the words in reading few paragraphs from a movie magazine, while Del listens and sees Dugan’s earnestness and desire to be a success. He also senses that Dugan is a good guy and well-meaning suitor for Vicky. Dugan really dreams of Vicky becoming another Natalie Wood, a dream both Vicky and he share.
At the end of the visit, the two young men know what’s up, and Gail (Wendy Gazelle) his next door neighbor drops in for a visit and is roughly kissed by Dugan. He leaves and Gail tells Del that he’s hanging out with the ‘wrong crowd’ and is not going to make it into a good ivy league college, and by the way he is alienating his school friends. Del is caught in between the two worlds, his old friends and his more famous, edgy and exciting ‘In Crowd’ friends.
Vicky invites Del over to work on her homework and he thinks it’s just another ruse to get out of the house and go on another date with Dugan. Turns out the she really wanted to work a bit on her school work and be with him not Dugan.
More friction emerges in another date where Del takes Vicky to see Gail perform in her senior class play. At dinner after the play Vicky is humiliated by Gail and her dinner group when Vicky tells them that she is reading a piece of ‘friction’. Vicky doesn’t understand her error, but stands, excuses herself and pauses to tell Gail that she really enjoyed Gail’s performance in the play. A great cudo from her heart that catches the whole table by surprise. Del angrily leaves to find her.
The British invasion has hurt the Perry Parker show ratings, so after he interviews a crude bunch of Brits, Perry goes ballistic. This turns out to be the last show, so Perry gives the ‘In Crowd’ instructions to cut loose, they dances wildly and are blacked out.
Del takes out Vicky one more time with a borrowed car he gets through Gail. His plan was for Vicky to meet Dugan and run off to Hollywood, somehow Tiny gets wind of the plan and tries to stop the couple, Del crashes the borrowed Caddy into his police car to free Dugan and Vicky who make their escape on Dugan’s motorcycle.
The last scene shows a grounded Del in his house. Gail comes by to play a new kind of music for him, Bob Dylan, while she wears a leather headband, mini-skirt and high top suede boots.He is stunned by her new appearance and can't take his eyes off of her. She feels connected to Del via the Dylan music/poetry, and Del finds solace in his re-ordered life. The two share a charged look, perhaps hinting of things to come.
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Donovan Leitch | Del Green |
| Joe Pantoliano | Perry Parker |
| Page Hannah | Lydia |
| Peter Boyle | 'Uncle Pete' Boyle |
| Scott Plank | Dugan |
| Jennifer Runyon | Vicky |
| Bruce Kirby | Morris |