Year: 1984
Director: Albert Magnoli
A special screening of this landmark Prince movie in tribute to the great man’s passing.
Coming some 32 years since I last saw it on the big screen, this was – for obvious reasons – a very hard watch at times, inevitably now coloured and shaped by the shock of recent events. The music and performances remain peerless, but watching him throw those phenomenal dance moves on his signature vertiginous heels carries a terrible poignancy with the dread knowledge of their ultimate consequence. It’s also a shock to be reminded of how bleak the domestic plotline is, and that to his credit Prince didn’t shy away from portraying his character as, frankly, a bit of a twat at times. The intensity of the dramatic scenes are, as ever, leavened by the inter-band rivalry and particularly the brilliant Morris Day. The film’s emotional crescendo is usually reached with the climactic performance, but to be honest, in this awful post-April unreality, I was gone at the sight of the opening silhouette.
Amid the dampened hankies, my wife and I were able to reflect on the huge part Prince has played in our shared life for nearly thirty years. Hell, he even played a central role in my wedding speech! It’s great that we still have all the music and the cherished memories, but so unconscionably sad that he left us in such desperate and desolate circumstances. Bless you, Prince Rogers Nelson.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
Prince. The Minneapolis sound. Motorbikes. Glamour. Charisma. Blokes in heels. Hotel lobbies, magazines.
I feel your pain.
I daren’t watch it. I’m fearful I might not like it. You review is reassuring.
Me too. I have just been away on business for 10 days in the USA and when I drove my car to Heathrow I took Parade with me to play. Didn’t play it on the way down but played it yesterday on way back. Was okay until ‘Sometimes it snows in April’. That did it but to be honest it did when I first heard it,
He couldn’t act though, could he?
That’s what I was mainly worried about!
Can’t act? Heck, I’d put him right up there with Dylan
I haven’t seen the film in about 20 yrs. It’s only $8 (4 quid) on Blu-ray at Amazon Canada. Should I get it?
Hell yeah! If only for the concert footage.
I’ve dug my “20th Anniversary” DVD copy out of the “vault” to watch, but I too have found it hard to actually get to the point of putting it in the player since his death…
From my last viewing 5 or 6 years ago, I tend to agree with the prevailing view that it’s one of the best “bad” films of all time – the plot is perfunctory at best, the dialogue appalling and the acting risible, but by christ, the musical sequences make up for it in spades…
As an aside, one recent re-review made a good point I hadn’t considered before, that Prince’s acting performance, rather than just poor, is actually completely “out there”, perfectly illustrated by the monkey-puppet sequence illustrating the OP, which is just bonkers – no current popstar’s handlers would allow their charge to come across as completely weird the way Prince does in the movie, especially as the dividing line between “Prince” and the character he plays (“The Kid”) is so blurry anyway…