This TV movie was supposed to turn Barry Manilow into a cross-over star, but didn't when the movie got lambasted by critics and failed to click with audiences. The movie wasn't nearly as awful as I had heard, and the leads - Manilow and Annette O'Toole - make an attractive and likable pairing. It also has a pretty good Big Band period look thanks to decent production values and some quite lovely costumes (mostly on the showgirls), but it was just SO familiar and predictable. It was clearly intended to be a throwback to the lushly romantic movies of Old Hollywood, but it would have benefited from not recycling THE hoariest story cliché from back then. Annette is the good girl with the frankly baffling attachment to a nasty boyfriend and Barry comes on the scene as the artistic nice guy third corner of the triangle. How many times have we seen this? The story elements were creaky fifty years before this thing was made and appeared in every genre of movie that had a romantic subplot (westerns, pirate movies, literally everything).
* mild spoiler * The title song features prominently of course and actually means a little something in the movie, but since the movie is based on the song, the lyrics are a bit of spoiler, especially to anybody who heard Copacabana played to death on the radio. Manilow's fans might find it worth watching simply because Barry has made so few movie appearances over the years.
* mild spoiler * The title song features prominently of course and actually means a little something in the movie, but since the movie is based on the song, the lyrics are a bit of spoiler, especially to anybody who heard Copacabana played to death on the radio. Manilow's fans might find it worth watching simply because Barry has made so few movie appearances over the years.