The Girl-Friends

Overview

After much satirical banter between the two girls and their university tutors and colleagues, the near to final dinner party scene explodes in an extended homage to Jean-Luc Godard via the daggiest dance number ever committed to film. Jack and the two girls (played by then campus objects of desire Jane Washington and Margaret Harrison) leap up from a series of dinner table pontifications – though we’ve already had a clue about the next event when Kate says, “My idol for this week is going to be that weedy little man in Godard’s film”. Then the music starts. All three eventually dance in an attempted replay of the number in Godard’s movie. Its shot front-on in the manner of Griffith, with the dancers moving towards and back from the stationary camera for almost all of the three minutes of the song, until near the end there is a cut to a medium close-up. Exhilarating. Funny. And remembered down the ages.