As previously noted, deciphering the plot of a movie from an associated music video is a subtle art. My best guess on It Couldn’t Happen Here: the Pet Shop Boys drive around England, picking up hitchhikers and ultimately becoming professional tour guides, leading paying customers around the United Kingdom by train and by plane.

I’ve never seen Dirty Dancing, some scenes of which are contained within the video for Eric Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes.” Here’s what we’re shown of the movie: Patrick Swayze dancing with Jennifer Grey, while a blonde girl stands behind Grey with her hands on her hips, moving in time with them. It’s presumably a dance lesson designed to rev up the three-way sexual tension. The next clip: Grey swaying with a shirtless Swayze. Soon, she’s taken off her shirt too (revealing a reasonably demure bra), arching her back as far as the human spine will allow. They start kissing. We switch to soft-focus backlighting as they get intimate.

As far as I can tell from this video, Dirty Dancing was a porn movie. There was a fig-leaf of plot involving dance instruction, and then a three-way that didn’t make it into this video, and then later, a hardcore scene between Swayze and Grey, and presumably after that, some girl-on-girl action.

The rest of the “Hungry Eyes” video: Eric Carmen is sitting in a darkened room, watching a 16-mm print of Dirty Dancing, wondering where all his Raspberries royalties went. (In theory, the Raspberries seem like the sort of band I should love, but I’ve never clicked with them. I recently learned that after the Raspberries’ demise, Carmen continued as a songwriter, placing “Almost Paradise,” sung by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson, on the Footloose soundtrack in 1984. So this hit and “Make Me Lose Control,” both (see comments for correction) on the eleven-million-selling (!!) Dirty Dancing soundtrack marked the fusion of the two stages of his career and, presumably, set him up for life financially.) The Dirty Dancing footage ends, and Carmen stands before the white light of the projector. He opens a window as footage of himself is projected on the wall, giving the whole scene a bit of a Norma Desmond tint, made stranger by the fact that he looks less like a star reliving his glory days and more like a lawyer who hasn’t quite made partner yet.

Cut to a blondish white girl in a black evening dress with a plunging neckline and off-the-shoulder straps. She’s gathering red flowers. In an abrupt non-continuity cut (not the last one in this video), she’s suddenly wearing a red satin jacket and caressing her own collarbone, with her fingers then sliding down between her breasts. Her lips are parted. The editing suggests that she’s just outside Carmen’s window, but then she’s projected against his own wall (without the jacket, but with long silver gloves), leaning beneath the red flowers. She steps forward in the projected film, and then steps into the frame with Carmen and touches his face. She walks out the door, vanishing into thin air as she goes. He takes it all in stride: presumably he’s been having these hallucinations for a while.

The song, by the way, is catchy but dull, a churning midtempo pop number notable only for the phrase “I’ve got hungry eyes / I’ve got you in my sights,” which makes for a ballistic/cannibalistic twist on what would otherwise be utterly standard lyrics about gazing longingly upon a desired one.

We hit the chorus, and footage of Carmen singing is projected on a big outside wall. (This video appears to have been shot in a single night in some industrial district.) Beneath the Eric-O-Vision is a hastily art-directed “nightclub,” so denoted by a couple of potted trees and a striped awning. Carmen strolls under the awning, where there are neon signs reading “Cerveza,” “Disco,” and “Club Entrance.” The fantasy girl spins around, hugging a brick wall, and then shimmies against a white background, and gazes longingly into the camera while artificial rain falls behind her. She pulls on her hair. The camera comes in for an extreme closeup on her throat.

The fantasy girl appears outside the club, now wearing a gold evening dress that barely contains her cleavage. In front of the fake rain, she puts her hands on her hips. Footage of her alternates the gold outfit with the black outfit. Carmen stands on a staircase, hands behind his back, lip-synching. For the song’s saxophone solo, the fantasy girl appears with a sax, allegedly playing along–although she doesn’t seem to be moving her fingers at any point.

Across the parking lot from the “nightclub,” Carmen sits in the “charming outdoor café,” so denoted by the checkered tablecloths and the neon sign saying “Café.” His table has no plates or silverware, but does feature a small candle. There’s a statuesque blonde girl sitting across from him. Carmen looks across the industrial zone and sees his fantasy girl, who has wrapped herself around an aging guy with sunglasses and a mustache, who is either her pimp or Stan Lee. She kisses him, and when she breaks the kiss, she is a different girl, an Asian one.

The video ends with Carmen sitting alone with his projector again, meditating on the patriarchal gaze.

“Hungry Eyes” peaked at #4 on the Billboard charts in early 1988. You can watch it here.

posted 1 July 2008 in 1988 and tagged Dirty Dancing, Eric Carmen, soundtrack videos, The Raspberries. 6 comments