EDITOR’S NOTE: Dancing With Danger was on USA Up All Night on December 30, 1995.

Mary Dannon (Cheryl Ladd) is a taxi dancer in Portland. Not a private dancer, but a dancer for money. Do what you want her to do. You know how it goes. Now, I don’t believe that taxi dancers existed outside of movies by 1994, but who am I to dispute a Cheryl Ladd made for TV movie?

Mary saw a murder in Atlantic City so she moved to Portland and put on her dancing shoes at the Star Brite. Her husband, a rich investment banker named Arthur (Stanley Kamel), has dispatched private investigator Derek Lidor (Ed Marinaro) to find her. Like any ex-cop with a drinking problem, he’s horrible at his job and the plot just happens to him versus him driving any of it forward in a positive manner.

Derek becomes one of the many men who dance with Mary but that dance card is getting less full as her customers start getting killed with scissors, which points to Mary as the killer as she’s training to be a hairdresser. Of course she and Derek get in bed together. All the while, this can’t decide if it’s a noir movie, a parody of those movies or a slasher or an erotic thriller. Everyone smokes. It can’t rain all the time. Neon everything. Hats aplenty for Ms. Ladd.

Directed by Stuart Cooper and written by Elise Bell — who went on to write Vegas Vacation —  this movie is a delirious and goofy mess. I kind of love it for trying.

You can watch this on YouTube.