What's the Story Behind the Film Footloose?
And is there really a tiny town where dancing was outlawed?
Hello!
I was on my way to the departure gates at the Indianapolis Airport last month when I heard a familiar song playing.
I instantly recognized it, though not the version that was blasting through the large speakers outside the food court.
“Ah, it’s Total Eclipse of the Heart!” I thought. “With a dance beat!”
This was three days before the total solar eclipse (of the heart) hit Indianapolis – but hearing Bonnie Tyler’s 1980s classic had me thinking of something else.
Footloose.
Yes, Bonnie Tyler makes me think of a 1980s film, because aside from Total Eclipse of the Heart, I know Bonnie Tyler from her contribution to the Footloose soundtrack.
My sister and I wore out that cassette tape back in the day.
And shortly after the Footloose flashback in the airport, I read that Footloose star Kevin Bacon had just been to Payson, Utah – after a group of high school students spent months campaigning for him to visit.
But why did a bunch of students in Utah want Kevin Bacon to come to their high school?
Because, I would learn, Payson High School was where Footloose was filmed.
And I thought how interesting it was that a movie – that I first watched1 on TV on a Saturday afternoon more than three decades ago – was still being talked about.
I know the movie and the soundtrack well, but had no idea of the story behind either of them.
And now I was curious…
The movie Footloose was released on February 17, 1984, and tells the story of a teenage boy named Ren (played by Bacon), who moves from the big city (Chicago) to a small town called Bomont.
In Bomont2 Ren finds a strict conservative community, where dancing is outlawed.
Fighting against the odds (and the town’s minister), Ren attempts to overturn the ban on dancing so the students can have a school dance.
I won’t spoil what comes next, but if you’ve ever heard the film’s theme song, you might be able to figure out where this story is going…
And though the characters in Footloose are fictional, there was a tiny town in America where dancing was outlawed.
But it wasn’t in Utah.
It was in Oklahoma – in Elmore City, a town with a population of 700.
When Elmore City was incorporated in 1898, public dancing was outlawed within the town limits.
And that ban on dancing was still on the books in 1980.
Instead of a school dance, the juniors and seniors of Elmore City High School would fundraise to hold a banquet.
There could be music – but no dancing.
“I remember it was so frustrating to have raised $450 for a band and having to sit there with our arms folded, tapping our feet and not being able to dance,” said Rachel Bailey, who graduated from Elmore City High School in the late 1970s.
But in 1980, junior class officer Leonard Coffee had an idea to make that year’s banquet different.
“I asked, ‘Well, why can’t we have a prom like other schools do?’ and it went like wildfire. Right after I asked that question, the rest of the class was, like, ‘Yeah, we want to do that,’” Coffee told The Oklahoman in 2010.
“We had all grown up watching American Bandstand, Happy Days, even the Andy Griffith Show – they would talk about the community dance.
“It was just what I thought was normal for a community to do.
“We wanted to dance.”
Coffee did not know that there was a law prohibiting dancing in Elmore City.
But when he found out, he and his classmates approached their school principal Dean Worsham for help.
Worsham, who had been the principal since 1962, supported the students’ idea, and told them they’d need to present their case to the school board.
But just like in the movie, some local residents (and churches) opposed the idea of a dance.
Reverend F.R. Johnson from the nearby town of Hennepin was a vocal opponent of lifting the ban, saying:
“No good has ever come from a dance.
“If you have a dance somebody will crash it and they’ll be looking for only two things – women and booze.”
Though it seemed the odds were against them, the students persisted.
“We had to remain respectful no matter what was said to us,” Coffee said.
“We had everything to lose and nothing to gain by getting into an argument or a fight.
“But there were several townsfolk that it did become an issue.
“And it was almost neighbor against neighbor for a few folks.”
While some locals opposed the dance on moral grounds, the students – including Coffee’s fellow junior class officer Mary Ann Temple-Lee – argued that a dance after the banquet would be safer than the alternative.
Without a dance or other activity, students in previous years would leave the banquet and “head across to Table Top Mountains to get drunk,” said Temple-Lee.
“We just wanted to have a dance in a safe place,’ Temple-Lee told Oklahoma Gazette in 2011.
“So we put together a plan to make it a win-win.”
Coffee, Temple-Lee, and the other students proposed having a dance after the banquet for those students who wanted to dance, and other activities on-site for those who didn’t.
This solution would keep the students together at the school – and supervised by adults.
The students then presented their case to the Elmore City school board.
“A lot of folks told us we were wasting our time, that the board was never going to allow it,” Coffee said.
“We were defeated before we started.”
The school board’s initial vote was split 2-2.
Board president Raymond Lee (and father of Mary Ann), then cast the tie-breaking vote:
“Let ‘em dance,” he said.
Not only did the students get their dance that April – they also caught the attention of state and national news media, who showed up in Elmore City to report on the town’s first school dance.
Here’s how Oklahoma City’s KOCO reported the story in 1980:
And it was a story in the newspaper that caught the eye of Dean Pitchford, a songwriter who had recently won an Academy Award for co-writing the theme song from the film Fame.
Pitchford was looking for his next project, and was approached by film executives about writing more for film.
But he didn’t want to write a story about “a girl in New York City who dreams of being a Broadway star” or “a boy in a small Southern town who wants to be a country star.”
He wanted to find a “story idea outside of the box.”
Then he read about what happened in Elmore City.
“Well, there’s a place where you would not expect music!” he told the Library of Congress in 2018.
Armed with an outline for a film, he traveled to Oklahoma to investigate further.
“I spent a week there, and I got to sit in on classes at the high school that I’d read about in the news,” he said.
“I was only 29 at the time, so the students were very accepting of my presence.
“I talked to local merchants, and I went to prayer meetings and the community socials that always followed them.”
He then wrote a screenplay – called Cheek to Cheek3 – which was purchased by 20th Century Fox.
But Fox sat on the script for a year, then put it into turnaround.
Though turnaround can spell death for a film, Cheek to Cheek “got snatched within 24 hours” by Paramount Pictures.
And after 22 rewrites, Cheek to Cheek became Footloose.
The film was made for an $8 million budget, and went on to earn ten times that at the box office, becoming the seventh highest-grossing film of 1984.
But it isn’t just the underdog story (or Kevin Bacon’s dancing) that made Footloose a hit.
It was the music.
Movie soundtracks were a big business back then (see Flashdance, Purple Rain, and any film soundtrack with a Kenny Loggins song).
And Pitchford didn’t just write the screenplay for Footloose.
He also co-wrote the nine songs on the film’s soundtrack, including Kenny Loggins’ Footloose, Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out for Hero, and Deniece Williams’ Let’s Hear It for the Boy4.
“We ended up with six Top 40 hits off that soundtrack,” Pitchford said.
The soundtrack for Footloose would go on to sell nine million copies, knocking Michael Jackson’s Thriller out of the top spot on the Billboard charts, and spending ten weeks at #1.
And the story of Footloose was later adapted for the stage, with Footloose The Musical debuting in 1998.
Pitchford wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the musical’s book, and the show was performed on both Broadway and London’s West End, and also toured in the US, UK, and Australia for more than a decade.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention a remake of the film Footloose was also released in 2011. Despite its winks and nods to the original, it failed to produce the same magic at the box office as the 1984 film5.
But the spirit of Footloose still lives on in Elmore City…
Though the school dances have been an annual fixture since 1980, in 2010, Elmore City decided to bring the dancing to the streets.
They now hold an annual “Footloose Festival” every April which features a car show, arts and craft vendors, food vendors, and – of course – dancing.
And Footloose is always on the playlist.
One more thing…
As much as Elmore City influenced Pitchford’s film, he says Footloose is not a film about a boy and the town where he can’t dance.
“It’s about a boy who has lost his father and a father who has lost his son. And those two characters clash and then find common ground6.
“The story of Footloose speaks to the heart.
“And because of that, it speaks to generations.”
And here’s one more - in case you need a reminder that good ideas get rejected all of the time…
Though audiences loved Pitchford’s 1984 soundtrack for Footloose, not everyone was a fan.
When the executives at Paramount first heard the rough mixes, Pitchford said they “FREAKED … and not in a good way.”
“Nothing sounded like a hit to them,” Pitchford said, adding that the studio “wanted to replace most of the songs.”
Fortunately, this feeling was not shared by Columbia Records, who were “over the moon” when they heard the rough mixes of the pop, rock and R&B songs on the soundtrack.
According to Pitchford, the President of Columbia Records even called the President of Paramount to tell him how thrilled he was with the hit album that “covered the full spectrum of contemporary radio.”
“So Paramount quietly quit trying to replace the songs,” Pitchford added.
Ready for a little Kenny Loggins?
Can you listen to this without tapping your feet?
What else is on my mind?
It’s not just 1980s films and soundtracks I’m thinking about…
MORE Communication Wonders and Blunders - I’m (still) doing my Q1 round-up, and have gathered 10 communication moments that stood out to me in February.
Say What?! — A Peloton instructor’s workout wasn’t the only thing that hit me in my core.
How Can I Help?
I’ll keep saying it: Communication matters.
If you want to improve your communication (and get all the good things that come with that), I’m your gal.
So many companies could reap massive rewards – from performance and culture to retention and engagement – by improving their communication.
So, if you know someone who could benefit from some help (as even the most seasoned leaders do), please get in touch and check out my website for more information.
You can also see my Top 10 list of what I can (and can’t) do for you here.
And if you see any communication examples (the good, the bad, and the ugly) that you think are worth analyzing or sharing, please send them my way!
Stay Curious!
-Beth
The “edited for television” version, obviously…
Bomont’s official location is not named, but the snowcapped mountains in the background give a Rocky Mountains vibe
This was always a placeholder title - one that Pitchford knew no one would fall in love with.
Closer examination of the lyrics has me wondering how great this boy really was…
Please, if you’ve never seen Footloose, skip this one and watch the original.
I’m curious how many others had this same takeaway from the film
I'm not positive I've ever seen the whole thing from start to finish! I'll look on streaming. Footloose still rips for everyone when it comes on at weddings and socials.