What’s Wrong With Corny?
This clip is from a 1953 film called Small Town Girl. The dancer, and he was a marvelous dancer, is Bobby Van. Had Van been been born in 1918 instead of 1928 he’d probably be a household name today…
We marvel, and rightly so, at Scorsese’s impressive tracking shots in Goodfellas (1990), but it’s worth pointing that as Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco enter that nightclub they’re not jumping up and down. When you consider all the elements that had to come perfectly together in order to pull off Van’s joyous hop through an idealized small town, all done in just a few takes, it’s a reminder that putting a smile on the face of your audience is no easy thing. Corny can be hard, harder than than even irony or nihilism.