Loves Music, Loves to Dance (2001 TV Movie) User Reviews

I've seen worse

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 16 October 2010]

"Loves Music, Loves to Dance" is another Sonny Grosso-produced TV movie based on a Mary Higgins Clark novel. This film was made in 2001 and has some familiar Canadian actors - Cynthia Preston, Dean McDermott and Alan Hall, to name three, and stars Patsy Kensit.

Kensit is Darcy Scott, the producer of a trash-talk TV show, whose friend Erin (Preston) is doing a story for her on Internet dating. When she is murdered, Darcy is convinced the murder is committed by one of the men she dated and sets out to find the killer.

These Clark TV movies are like accidents - you can't help but look. I watch all of them, even though they're not very good. This one, while full of holes (especially the first scene when a woman is murdered a few feet away from a big party and didn't scream her guts out), moves a little faster than some of the past adaptations. Kensit does a good job, and Preston, who played Faith Roscoe on General Hospital, is lively. Justin Louis plays the police detective assigned to the case.

Mary Higgins Clark's agent, I'm assuming, could have sold these books to anyone. Why the Grosso-Jacobsen group was chosen is beyond me.

Online dating woes

[megan_chatterton · 5/10 · 29 November 2021]

This movie was a bit cringy because of the music and how it was shot. The story was hard to follow at first, but better by the end. Most acting was fine, but the lead was maybe miscast. Again, not sure why random people are allowed to investigate murders with the police.

Hope the Book was Thrilling !

[whpratt1 · 3/10 · 31 December 2005]

Missed reading this Mary Higgins Clark book and decided to view the TV film and was very disappointed with the entire film from beginning to end. Patsy Kensit,(Darcy Scott) gave a great performance in trying to locate her very close friend who all of a sudden went missing. However, this close friend was doing an assignment for Darcy's TV program which involved going out with guys she connected with on the Internet. You see the apparent murderer dancing around his apartment with a gal who is limp in his arms and having a mixed pair of shoes on her feet. This was a very poorly produced film and you will almost know immediately who the killer is going to turn out to be. I am sure reading the book would have been a better choice.

Sit This One Out

[Theo Robertson · 3/10 · 15 August 2010]

LOVES MUSIC LOVES TO DANCE is a good example not to make a murder mystery . From the outset we're , if not shown who the murderer is , then who it probably isn't . This means when we build up to a scene featuring a man like the dodgy handyman in the flat then the audience are fairly sure it's not him meaning the movie loses any suspense or tension

This fundamental clumsy genre storytelling clearly manifests itself with the first murder . The victim Anne Sheridan is at a nighttime garden party where she meets the murderer . It's clear from the dialogue they both know each other well . " Are you all right " asks an out of view party goer . Anne replies yes then continues talking to the murderer who then goes on to to strangle her . This leads to all sorts of problems involving plausibility . Didn't the party goer see the murderer ? Why didn't Annne scream since the party is only a few yards away and since the murderer is an associate of Anne wouldn't he be questioned ? Even more unbelievable is that the audience know that the murderer has left his fingerprints at the scene . When you're watching a film and you're more knowledgeable about police procedures than the cops in the story you're know you're watching rubbish

Patsy Kensit must have a really poor agent . She tried to swap a rather mediocre music career for a mediocre acting one but found herself starring in nonsense like BAD KARMA and this . That said LOVES MUSIC , LOVES TO DANCE is fairly amusing even if that wasn't the producers intention . The lifestyle of a murderer who is in to ballroom dancing with corpses isn't something you see everyday and does lead to laugh out loud moments

Good book, bad movie

[star_in_the_zenith_79 · 3/10 · 21 May 2014]

I was honestly surprised someone said Loves Music Loves to Dance was one of Clarke's weaker novels. I thought it was one of her best. The who done it cliffhanger was executed to perfection, there are plenty enough curveballs thrown to keep you guessing. The characters are much more believable and compelling.

However, this movie was far inferior. Key characters who made the plot much more interesting were left out, most notably a couple of men who could have easily been the killer themselves, along with the man who it actually turns out to be. Its not nearly as obvious who the killer is in the book. Even many of the characters who were included were changed from the novel, sometimes in unappealing ways. Even the villain himself is far more compelling and far more dangerous in the novel.

I won't go into all the differences between the novel and the movie, there is no room or time. But don't let this third rate film discourage you from reading the book if you haven't. Its much better. Pass the film up.

All of Clarke's books with the possible exception of While My Pretty One Sleeps were done poorly on the screen. Its ashame because I feel all of them could have been good box office films in competent hands, including Loves Music Loves To Dance. I would like to see them redone someday by more competent directors and screenwriters. Doubt it though.

Poorly made, poorly written TV movie.

[p1phillips · 23 February 2004]

I have read most of Mary Higgins Clark's books and can't help but be interested in seeing how they are adapted to television. Loves Music, Loves To Dance was one of her weaker novels, and it results in a TV movie that is amongst one of the worst I have seen.

The plot involves the murder of Darcy's best friend while doing a report on on-line dating. In order to solve the mystery, Darcy decides to also date each one of her friend's on-line pals to see which one of them might have something to do with the death. Sounds safe, huh? Darcy must be one of the most incompetent, air-headed heroines to ever grace a made-for-TV mystery. Some of her behaviours during the film's climax are so empty-headed and irrational your mouth will likely hang open in disbelief. And the method by which the killer's identity is discovered is also hard to fathom. A serial killer who has gotten away with murder for seven years would slip up like that? Well, obviously, because it's the only way our clueless heroine could discover the truth.

Production values are also low, resulting in a movie that looks like it was made sometime in the mid 1980s. But as bad as this movie was, I somehow get the feeling I'll be watching further made-for-TV Mary Higgins Clark mysteries.

Not as intriguing as the great book by Clark but not bad

[inkblot11 · 7/10 · 13 September 2021]

Darcy Scott ( Patsy Kensit ) works as a producer of a daytime reality show. As such, she sometimes clashes on story ideas with the Diva lady who hosts. Nevertheless, one idea pleases them both. Darcy's best friend Erin goes on multiple dates with beaux she meets on a dating website and then tells all. Unhappily, on date 7 Erin never comes back home. She has been murdered and her body dumped in a dead end alley. What is startling is her shoes when found. One foot has a snug boot and the other, a dancing shoe. Research shows this was a matching method to another beautiful lady killed seven years ago. Was it the same killer or a copycat? The police start investigating but won't listen when she tells them it was one of the Internet dates. So, Darcy, having Erin's file, decides to go meet all the same men and nab the killer herself. BAD IDEA. Clark is one of my favorite authors and this title one of her best. If you love thrillers, go find the book. However, this adaptation is not awful and has some good moments. Kensit looks beautiful and performs well in the leading role. The story has been truncated while still retaining the most vital elements. By all means, view it if you love mysteries or the incomparable MHC!

It Couldn't Get Much Worse

[skcurtis-37244 · 1/10 · 4 January 2021]

I have read with great enjoyment all of Mary Higgins Clark's novels, but when it comes to this movie (I use this term lightly), don't waste your time! The script was horrible and the acting (I use that term very lightly) even worse. My husband and I could not stop laughing and that was the only reason we did not turn it off after the first 3 minutes.

Decent enough entertainment

[Dr_Coulardeau · 9/10 · 15 July 2007]

A serial killer has gone unnoticed for many years in New York City till the disappearance of a TV journalist working on Internet dating. He is suspected then to have killed seven women and the bodies disappeared and apparently the profiling of the murders that all had some important common points did not bring them together and attract the attention of the police. Then the story is well executed and designed and the final identity of the killer is not a total surprise but it is quite logically introduced in the film, the way he is introduced from the very start. But of course that kind of antagonistic presentation of the killer as the most innocent person possible, actually friendly and helpful, is naive because it has been used hundreds of times. But this film, even if it is not the detective story of the century that is going to get ten Oscars, is decent enough entertainment to be watched with some enjoyment.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne