Belinda

1998

Johnny's comments:

Belinda (aka Midnight Dancer) is a 1987 drama where Belinda (Deanne Jeffs) is a young ballet dancer who goes to an audition and impresses the producers but is too young for the role. One of the producers offers her a job as a dancer at a nightclub and Belinda gets the job. She joins a group of sexy dancers headed by Crystal (Mary Regan), who is considered the smart one of the lot and she takes Belinda under her wing while the costumer (Tim Burns) also looks after her. Things start out fine for Belinda despite the rampant sexism and even her parents are sort of fine with it but slowly and surely, the dark side of the industry begins to rear it's head and Belinda struggles to handle it. This all comes to a head when the show is unexpectedly cancelled as the nightclub is turning into a disco.

Pretty standard - young girl thrown into the deep end of entertainment industry and comes out a different person. Deanne Jeffs is well cast as the naïve young dancer and all the dancers seem to get on like a house on fire. But the story is as old as time and one of the character's downfall is telegraphed a mile out and you're just waiting for it to happen, although it is quite sad when it does happen. Completely baffled by John Jarrett's appearance in the movie. Was he supposed to be Belinda's much older boyfriend? He disappears for nearly an hour and Belinda seems obsessed with him but they never even kiss. No idea.

Would love to see Belinda in HD but if it hasn't happened by now, it's probably not going to happen but then I would've said the same about The Right Hand Man. The VHS rip is passable but the picture could be better. Quite a few actress have nude scenes in the movie so I don't know why it took so long for me to get around to capping it as I've had the movie for over 10 years. I guess it just got lost in the pile. It's Deanne Jeffs' only movie, but she did appear in an episode of Round The Twist, so I guess she was more just a dancer.

various women film clip (see IDs below)

Kaarin Fairfax

Mary Regan

Elizabeth Lord

Robyn Moase