If You Give a Dance, You Gotta Pay the Band | |
---|---|
Genre | Drama |
Written by | Stanley L. Gray |
Directed by | Fred Coe |
Starring |
Donna M. Bryan James Broderick Georgia Burke |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producers |
David Susskind Pamela Susskind (associate producer) |
Cinematography |
Mike Liberman Jake Ostroff |
Editor | Arline Garson |
Running time | 73 minutes |
Original release | |
Release | December 19, 1972 |
If You Give a Dance You Gotta Pay the Band is a 1972 American TV movie. It was the first program shown under the umbrella ABC Theater. [1] [2]
The production (at the time referred to as a "dramatic special" or "teleplay" rather than a made-for-TV movie) was the first screen credit for Laurence Fishburne and led to him getting a role later on in the soap opera One Life to Live. [3] [4] [5]
The teleplay first aired on ABC at 8:30pm ET on Tuesday, December 19, 1972 [3] and was rerun on Wednesday, June 6, 1973 at 9:00pm ET. [5] In TV listings of the era, the title was generally given as If You Give a Dance You Gotta Pay the Band without a comma.
The story of ghetto boy and girl trying to raise money for the girl to visit her father in prison. It was shot on videotape in November 1972. [6]
90-minute dramatic special
Quick, what was Laurence Fishburne's first movie gig? If you said it was a 1972 television film called "If Give a Dance You Gotta Pay the Band," you're right.