ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)

When director-choreographer Bob Fosse had a massive heart attack while completing Lenny (1974) and preparing the musical Chicago for its Broadway premiere, he did the unexpected. He turned the experience into a movie. Drawing on his own history of overwork, drug use, and womanizing, he and playwright Robert Alan Aurthur co-wrote the story of Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), whose self-destructive behavior threatens his work on a film about stand-up comic Lenny Bruce and the Broadway show he’s staging. It was a dazzling exercise in meta-filmmaking, with Fosse’s striking dance numbers and Oscar-winning music, set design, costuming, and editing. It also provided a great, out-of-type star turn for Scheider and some terrific female roles. Leland Palmer plays Joe’s ex-wife, a role modeled on Fosse’s wife Gwen Verdon; Ann Reinking basically plays herself as Joe’s girlfriend; and Jessica Lange started her rise to stardom and critical acclaim with a magnetic, thoughtful performance as the Angel of Death.

d. Bob Fosse, 123m, DCP

Courtesy of The Walt Disney Studios.