Roseland

Some months back, TCM ran a spolight on Merchant-Ivory productions, which gave me the chance to record a couple of movies that I hadn't seen before. One of those movies was a film that predated the later sterertype of Merchant-Ivory being about British period pieces for which the pair became famous: Roseland.

The title Roseland refers to the Roseland Ballroom, a dancing spot in Manhattan that operated for about 90 years before it was finally closed in 2014 and demolished to build a high-rise apartment building. But even by 1977, when the movie was released, it felt like the Roseland had seen better days, with a clientele of disproportionately older people who would have enjoyed going dancing when they were younger decades earlier, think the old Kinks song "Come Dancing". Roseland the movie is more or less an anthology film telling three stories.

The first one is called "The Waltz". Teresa Wright plays May, a relatively recent widow, who goes to the Roseland to have someone to dance with and not feel so lonely now that she's a widow after all these years. She likes to dance with Stan (Lou Jacobi), who is a widower, although is story is a bit more tragic as is revealed at the end of the segment. The main thrust of the story deals with the fact that when May dances in front of one particular mirror at the Roseland, she sees herself as she was back in the day, together with her late husband as he was all those years ago. But nobody else can see this.

The second story, "The Hustle", is the longest and most complicated. Christopher Walken, before becoming a star with The Deer Hunter a year later, plays Russell. He's a gigolo to Pauline (Joan Copeland), a childless woman who likes to dance at the Roseland. As the segment opens, she's celebrating her birthday at the Roseland, together with Russell and Cleo (Helen Gallagher) who gives dancing lessons in a small studio on an upper floor to make extra money. Invited to the party it Marilyn (Geraldine Chaplin), a divorcée who's between jobs but looking for a good one. She falls in love with Russell and may even be willing to make sacrifices to help Russell win the big dance contest. Russell makes intimations that the feeling is mutual, but he's got all those attachments to other women, too.

Finally comes "The Peabody". Lilia Skala is Rosa, an older widow who started coming to the Roseland and found a platonic dance partner in Arthur. The story is told in flashback, however, as Arthur has recently died. Rosa's big dream was to win the dance contest dancing the Peabody, although this contest has the reputation for having a contestant die since it's a tough dance for the mostly older people who enter the competition. Poor Rosa never seems able to enter for one reason or another, and then Arthur suddenly dies threatening to scupper things permanently.

I was mildly surprised to see Roseland get largely mediocre reviews. I found it to be a fairly well-done movie, albeit one that might not be to everybody's tastes thanks to a decidedly elegiac tone. As I mentioned above, the Roseland Ballroom shown here feels decidedly like it's full of faded glory. But the stories are interesting enough and not overly long, with the acting definitely worth watching. So definitely Roseland is one that's worth looking out for and watching, even if you disagree with my judgment on it.