Quote:
Originally Posted by FredH
Oh boy! Your post just brought back a flood of memories.
I was working for Pinnacle Books (in Century City) back then. They were a paperback publisher, who moved out here from New York to sign movie tie-in deals. Unfortunately they landed a two book contract which consisted of Raggedy Man (a Sissy Spacek movie) and Can't Stop The Music. Raggedy Man was decent, and earned some royalties, but Can't Stop the Music was a bomb.
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Guess what? I'm pretty sure that I bought the Raggedy Man novelization! I don't know what I'd think now, but I liked the film when it was released. Sissy Spacek and Eric Roberts were in it. It was directed and produced by those who also did Norma Rae and Hud. Henry Thomas (pre-E.T.) is in the film, too.
Do they still make movie tie-in books? I'm assuming you meant those novelizations they used to write from the screenplays? I used to buy some of those when I liked a film and wanted to experience it again in some way. This was mostly before home video that I bought them, when you couldn't see a movie anytime you wanted to. I never read one of those "before" I'd seen the film, though. Did people do that?
It kinda makes sense that "Can't Stop the Music" wouldn't have made a good novelization, there wasn't much of a story there!
Quote:
Originally Posted by FredH
Anyway, with Alan Carr as the producer, everyone thought it was going to be another hit like Grease. Unfortunately, the disco craze landed with a thud at Comiskey Park in Chicago the year before on Disco Demolition Night.
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Yes, I guess Grease was his one big hit. After "Music" he did Grease 2, then the infamous "Snow White Oscars" and then it seems he was finished!
Yes, "Can't Stop the Music', came out when disco was on the wane. In fact, I kept a Hollywood Reporter, for reasons other than what I'm about to tell you, that has a two-page ad in it for this "upcoming" same film, which apparently had a different title: "Discoland, Where the Music Never Ends." Also, remember in the movie Airplane which came out in mid-1980, there's a scene where you see the Chicago skyline and a radio tower (KLMN for my purposes here) and you hear a radio announcer say, "You're listening to radio station KLMN where Disco lives forever," at which point the "Airplane" flies into and knocks over the radio tower." LOL!
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After I posted that billboard photo, I saw this item about the Sunset billboard:
"This billboard, promoting the Village People disco-musical "Can't Stop the Music" graced Sunset Blvd. The billboard itself actually had a traffic-stopping, star-studded, red-carpet, unveiling ceremony on "Can't Stop The Music Day" (Thank you, mayor Tom Bradley). The red carpet extended from the billboard all the way to the door of the famous Schwab's drugstore. Long after the movie - a monumental flop - had disappeared from theaters, this billboard was still up. For more info on the making of this memorably bad film, check out the book "Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll Starring the Fabulous Allan Carr" by Robert Hofler.