Cheryl Ladd’s Oddball Dancing with Danger

How or why Dancing with Danger was made is a mystery lost to time, but the answer might be found in its love scene. Before we get to that, let’s reacquaint ourselves with this 1994 USA Network telefilm. Cheryl Ladd stars as taxi dancer Mary Dannon, whose various disguises (all-black ensembles, berets, large sunglasses) counterproductively raise her profile.

Mary is already as conspicuous as any Guess Who? character in the opening scene, when she witnesses a street slaying in Atlantic City. She then moves cross-country to the Pacific Northwest, where trouble follows. She lands a job at the Star Brite, punching a time card before and after each dance. Her profession, popular in the ’20s and ’30s, was moribund by the ’50s and ’60s. Virtually no taxi dancers existed in the US by the ’90s, but this isn’t a movie concerned with realism.

This is normally the part of a review where I’d summarize the plot, but even screenwriter Elisa Bell (Vegas Vacation) might struggle with that task. Ostensibly, it’s about a private investigator, Derek Lidor (Ed Marinaro), retained by wealthy, obsessive investment banker Arthur (Stanley Kamel) to find his estranged wife, Mary. Mary has ties not only to the Atlantic City homicide but to murders soon to come, including that of Arthur.

Derek’s a standard-issue disgraced cop with a drinking problem and an estranged wife of his own. (Sample dialogue: “Derek, it’s too late. You went to a dark place and I couldn’t get you back. I could never get you back.”) He is not particularly dogged in anything but his refusal to accept that his marriage is over. His incuriosity paves the way for myriad plot contrivances, including a revelation about Arthur that throws the plot into disarray. He’s equally inept at uncovering Mary’s past, despite his motivation to, er, uncover her in the present.

At the Star Brite, Derek returns again and again to dance with the woman he’s investigating. He has rivals for her time, including Ankle Guy, who enthuses, “Mary has classic ankles. Give me a nice pair of ankles any day of the week and I’m in heaven. Pure heaven.” There’s also Earl (Wally Dalton), an older married man who rages when Mary spends a shift in Derek’s arms. They’re obvious suspects when someone starts killing the men in Mary’s orbit, but the MO’s a little strange. All these scissor stabbings become more curious when Mary’s revealed to be a hairdresser-in-training.

Derek rents the apartment across the hall from hers, the better for keeping her safe. When he catches her in a major lie, she is unbothered, explaining “I lie ’cause I don’t like the truth.” In his own way, neither does Derek. After he sustains a superficial stab wound at home (his attacker flees into the night), Mary tends to his wounds. He tells her the traumatic story of how his career and marriage fizzled.

Derek: I wasn’t getting the bad guys and I was hurting the good ones.

Mary: So how long are you going to do this?

Derek: What?

Mary: Try to prove you’re one of the good guys.

Derek: Until somebody believes me.

Mary: They never will. The ones you want to.

[…]

Mary: Maybe it’s time to start over.

Derek: No. I don’t wanna start over. I want to go back.

DANCING WITH DANGER (1994)

Dancing with Danger’s early scenes borrow liberally from Twin Peaks’ kitschy set design, slinky music and mischievous intrigue. The (shallow) similarities end there, which is perhaps unsurprising in the context of director Stuart Cooper’s filmography. Preceding Danger was 1993’s Rubdown. Starring Jack Coleman and Michelle Phillips, it was another USA Network offering with a more explicitly erotic slant. And that brings us to that aforementioned sex scene.

Marinaro’s the first to disrobe, his ample bosom duly heaving, and then something very made-for-cable happens. Standing before her paramour while facing the camera, Ladd ditches her robe for us, not for him. The staging is awkward and decidedly unsexy. The camera lingers for the prescribed amount of time (that was perhaps contractually dictated) while the actors barely move. There’s a similarly mechanical cleavage shot later. These moments play less like they were made for watching than for hitting ‘pause.’

The lack of directorial effort doesn’t end with the strangely edited sex scene. There are several unimaginatively recycled shots and a general lack of narrative cohesion. Ladd occasionally seems baffled by what she’s gotten herself into, and puts minimal effort into her performance. Marinaro (of Sisters) fares best when he lets his abs do the talking. More irksome was the mess of a screenplay, with its preposterous reveal that renders much of the plot utterly pointless.

And then there’s the forced quirkiness. Besides Ankle Guy and other Star Brite regulars, there’s Mary’s subterfuge and the cash she stores in a teddy bear. Ladd is obviously in her forties, but Mary’s handed a backstory more befitting a 20-year-old. (The occasional half-hearted stabs at Veronica Lake hair also fail, though we can’t pin that on Bell.) If you want 90 minutes of retro-tinged hijinks and a stunner swaying on a checkered floor, Audrey Horne videos await.

Streaming and DVD availability

Dancing with Danger isn’t available on DVD or any of the usual streaming platforms, but bootlegs circulate on YouTube. Other Cheryl Ladd films and TV shows are available for streaming at Amazon. Some are free if you’re a Prime subscriber; you can browse that list here.

^{Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.}

… But wait, there’s more!

If you’re here because you’re a Charlie’s Angels completist, we also have some Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson coverage. I’ve even tackled some of Charlie’s Angels itself, with a focus on Charlie’s workplace sexual harassment of the Angels. But today I wanted to use this to put a couple of Dancing with Danger shots side-by-side with Ten Cents a Dance (1931). The only problem was finding suitable material.

Despite the rarity of other films about taxi dancers, Ten Cents had seemingly no influence on Danger. Finding a single matchup—an instance of each protagonist licking her finger—required a mental stretch. Danger is a stab (so to speak) at a sultry noir pastiche; Ten Cents is about a woman discovering her worth—and her husband’s worthlessness. There are also differences in how the characters approach their craft.

Ladd’s Mary is deliberately sensual in her work, and is shown entertaining a string of regulars. Stanwyck’s Barbara shares a single dance with a crude, tobacco-chewing sailor that’s played for laughs; her time is otherwise spent in feisty conversation or daydreaming about a better life. One thing they agree on is there are too many dancing partners to keep track of. Barbara says “When you’ve danced with them as long as I have, they all sort of blend into one.” Mary expresses a similar sentiment: “Do you have any idea how many men I’ve danced with? I don’t even look at their faces anymore.”