"Let's Hear It For The Boy"

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2010)

Based on a true incident that happened in a small Oklahoma town, young Kevin Bacon arrives at a small town in one of the reddest parts of the USA. This small town is positively crimson because they've actually outlawed dancing except maybe in the privacy of your own home.
This extreme and probably unconstitutional law started when a few years ago Reverend John Lithgow and Dianne Weist's son was killed after one of these dances. Lithgow himself is not an extremist, but he's letting some of the more extreme rednecks in the town to start in on book burning. As Robert Preston said in The Music Man, "Gotta keep the young ones moral after school".
Of course Bacon takes up with Lori Singer who is Lithgow and Weist's other child when he arrives and she's quite the wild child. But his standing up to her old man impresses her like none of the other young men in the town.
Footloose has a nice liberal message about the excesses of religious zeal which is certainly pertinent for today. But it's the musical score in the film that really makes it special, one of the best scores of the Eighties. The title song and Let's Hear It For The Boy both received Oscar nominations for Best Original Song.
This film proved to be Kevin Bacon's breakout role as an actor. Although he never was quite leading man material as his subsequent career has proved, he's certainly had staying power in playing a nice variety of roles of both good and bad and mixed individuals. No question here he's the good guy outsider. Best scene for me is him teaching Christopher Penn how to dance to Let's Hear It For The Boy.
A film quite ground in the Eighties, Footloose still has much relevance for today's audience.