Wonderful Movie

Pretty Good

best movie i've ever seen.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I first saw this movie on USA or Lifetime, I can't remember which. Eventually I bought it on VHS and transferred it to DVD. It's not a great movie, but anything with Cheryl Ladd is worth watching IMHO. She plays Mary, who moves to Portland, Oregon after her fiancé is murdered. She goes to cosmetology school during the day and works as a taxi dancer at night. Ed Marinaro plays the detective who is hired to find her. A killer is stalking her, and of course the detective is attracted to her. I mean, who wouldn't be? Cheryl Ladd has always always been a truly gorgeous woman, and in this movie she is particularly beautiful. The killer isn't that hard to spot, but it's still a fun movie to watch, with a great jazz score.

(Some Spoilers) Average made for TV Film-Noir movie with a really good musical soundtrack that has taxi-dancer Mary Dannon being investigated by a private eye who's working for her estranged husband Sam. After agreeing to meet with Sam under the Hawthrone Bridge in Portland with the latest info about Mary PI Derek Lidon finds him murdered in his car. Later on the TV news Derek finds out that his former client Sam was a Portland bank executive and even more surprising that he wasn't married to Mary Dannon in fact he never even knew her. Getting in touch with Sam's wife Doris Daniels it turns out that she never knew or heard of Mary either so what did Mary have to do with Sam while he was alive and what happened to him the night that he was murdered? Derek later finds out that Mary was to be married in Atlantic City some time ago but was left high and dry by her fiancé at the alter; a short time later he was found murdered just like Sam was with his throat slashed by a scissor. Shadowing Mary to find out what she has to do with the Sam Daniels' murder it turns out that another man, Steve, who later danced with her, at the Star Brite Dance Club where she works, also ended up dead with, like Sam, his throat slashed. Trying to find the killer Derek himself almost gets murdered by him who slashed him with a pair of scissors but Derek was too drunk to stand upright thus the booze saved his life.The police with detective Boris Chowder in charge of the murder investigation and PI Derek, Boris' former police partner, checking out all the clues are totally in the dark to who's involved in the "Scissor Murders" in Portland and it's Mary Dannon who's the only suspect that they could come up with. It turns out that the murder of Mary's fiancé in Atlantic City and the killings in Portland has a connection to them and it indeed was Mary Dannor but in just what way did she have anything to do with the killings on both coasts? Actress Cheryl Ladd as Mary Dannor is really fantastic looking, at the age of 43, in the film "Dancing With Danger" as taxi dancer Mary Dannon and is just as gorgeous, if not more so, then she was when she played one of the famous women crime fighters in the TV show "Charlie's Angles" some twenty years ago. Ed Marianoro has that 1940's private eye look as the moody ex-cop Derek Lidon who's get belted around and almost killed but in the end gets to the bottom of, and solves, the "Scissor Murder" case and also after losing his wife Wendy to divorce court gets the girl; the beautiful and sultry Mary Dannon.

They actually do a pretty good job of setting up a noir atmosphere, thanks in no small part to the music. Granted, the story/script is average TV slasher/mystery. Its all about atmoshpere and that music! Wish I could find the soundtrack.Try to watch it on a cold rainy day or night and see if you don't catch the mood and enjoy it!

The team just about manage to turn Portland Oregon into Dark City with burned out copper turned P.I. Marinaro involved with Taxi Dancer Ladd.Most interesting element is the Star Brite Club where Ladd plies her trade ("They choose me") and the customers do would be existentialist dialogue at the bar.The deployment of Ladd's mask like features and the forties noir atmosphere hint at director Cooper's origins in British art cinema but the film is only marginally more atmospheric than the usual TV slasher film.Competent performance and production.