In 1979’s The Music Machine, Gerry Pearson (Gerry Sundquist) is a directionless young man who is living in Camden, North London.  He lives with his parents (Brenda Fricker and Johnnie Wade) and he really doesn’t have much to look forward to in life.  He can spend his days living on the dole or he can get a job that will leave him with no hope for advancement.  It’s London.  It’s England.  It’s 1979.  There’s no chance for moving up in the world.  The only thing that Gerry has going for him is that he loves to dance at London’s most low-key discotheque, The Music Machine.

Wow.  Trust the British to make a depressing disco movie!

Actually, that’s not quite fair.  The Music Machine was obviously inspired by Saturday Night Fever and, once you get past the image of John Travolta in that white suit, that’s not a particularly happy movie either.  Indeed, one could argue that Saturday Night Fever is even more depressing than The Music Machine.  I mean, in Saturday Night Fever, Barry Miller jumps off a bridge and John Travolta spends the entire film treating Donna Pescow like crap.  Even Karen Lynn Gorney isn’t smart enough to realize that she was insulted by Laurence Olivier.  Travolta may look good in that white suit but he ultimately ends up sitting alone on a subway with a big bandage on his face.

That said, Saturday Night Fever is not an unbearable depressing film to watch.  That’s because the film’s narrative moves with an infectious energy, there are small moments of humor that lighten the mood, and Travolta gives such a charismatic performance as Tony that it’s hard not to forgive him even when he’s at his worst.

Unfortunately, The Music Machine doesn’t really have any of that.

It does have a plot that closely follows Saturday Night Fever.  Gerry wants to win a dance contest and the chance to appear in a film.  His partner is the sophisticated Claire (Patti Boulaye).  Whereas Tony Manero had the confidence to come up with his own moves, Gerry is mentored by DJ Laurie (a youngish Clarke Peters, who would later go on to appear in The Wire and Da Five Bloods).  Unfortunately, the film itself never comes close to capturing Saturday Night Fever‘s relentless narrative drive and, in the lead role, Gerry Sundquist comes across as being more petulant than smoldering.  If we forgave Tony Manero his missteps because he seemed to be so committed to his dancing, it’s harder to forgive Gerry because he’s just so whiny.  The Music Machine soundtrack is full of generic disco tunes.  There’s no Bee Gees.  There’s no Yvonne Elliman.  There’s not even a Fifth of Beethoven!

Of course, the main problem with The Music Machine is that it’s painfully obvious that Gerry Sundquist didn’t know how to dance.  That’s a bit of problem when the entire movie is supposed to be a celebration of moving with the music.  The director handles Sundquist’s lack of dancing ability by filming him from the waist up and having the other dancers move around him.  It doesn’t help.  In fact, it just makes you even more embarrassed for him.  Watching this film, I thought about how, in Silver Linings Playbook, the whole point of the dance scene was that Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence were terrible dancers but they still went out and gave it their all without apology.  In that case, it was charming.  In the case of The Music Machine, you just feel bad for everyone else on the dance floor.

Oh, this review is becoming so negative!  I don’t like ending on a negative note so let me just say that Clarke Peters’s charisma shines through.  He’s definitely the best part of the film.