Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal
The seventh single released from Michael Jackson’s Bad album was a track called Smooth Criminal. This track was released October, 24, 1988 and went
to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.
This fast paced upbeat song is about a lady named Annie who was attacked by Mr. Big – Frankie Lideo in her apartment. It has become one of Michael’s most popular songs and videos.
Smooth Criminal is a part of Michael’s short film Moonwalker which features Joe Pesci as Mr. Big Frankie Lideo. Pesci plays a character parody of Michael Jackson’s manager, Frank Dileo.
Although it is not shown is Smooth Criminal, Mr. Big is a drug dealer who wants to sell drugs to kids so he can get the whole world hooked on drugs. They are discovered in a cave by Michael and three of his young friends.
There are two different versions of this video and song. The radio version, which is the version that is mostly played on TV, is much shorter, about four minutes. The longer version is about 10 minutes.
In the longer version, all three of the children are watching over a fence when Michael comes up a dark ally. He then walks into an old dilapidated 30’s style night club (where he told the kids to meet him in the full Moonwalker version) which is called ‘Club 30s’.
The run down night club is brought back to life when Michael Jackson enters it through an arched green door.
The patrons of the club stare at him with suspicion at first. Michael then flips a coin from across the room into a jukebox and they all began to dance.
During the awesome blend of hip hop and early night club style dancing Michael is constantly accosted by several gangsters whom he takes down.
While they are dancing in the club Mr. Big’s henchmen can be seen out the windows above them surrounding the night club. During this time one of the three children; Katie is looking through a barred windowless portal on the large green door through which Michael entered the club. She is then snatched by one of Mr. Big’s henchmen and is kidnapped.
As the henchmen surround the club Michael picks up a machine gun and begins shooting up at the large windows that show only the large dark helmet wearing gun toting silhouettes of Mr. Big’s henchmen.
Two other dancers take the gun from him and hurry him out of a blue door into an ally.
After looking around for a quick moment, Michael runs to his left and the lady closes the door, leans on it and takes out a Chinese fan.
Facts about the Smooth Criminal:
The long version is reminiscent of the musical “The Girl Hunt Ballet”, the final act in the 1952 musical film “The Band Wagon” starring Fred Astaire, one of Michael’s favorite dancers.
If you really want to get an idea of where Michael got a lot of the inspiration for his dance moves, have a look at some old Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin movies.
The Impossible Lean:
The dance sequence that included an impossible lean forward by Michael and the dancers had everyone who’d seen it amazed. How had they done that? What sort of camera trickery was this? We just knew they’d used some sort of wires.
None the less, it was one of the coolest, smoothest moves ever and it fascinated all who saw it.
Now had Michael performed this impossible move by himself, I believe more people would have believed this extraordinarily gifted artist that introduced the moonwalk to the world had somehow defied the laws of gravity.
However since all the other dancer also performed the impossible, there had to be cables or something.
Now when they performed it live on stage and you could clearly see there were no cables, everyone was again asking how had they done that?
For those of you who’ve seen the original ‘Wizard of Oz’ and remember the tin man leaning from side to side, seemingly defying gravity, you just may see some similarity.
I did see it however I don’t remember that particular scene and even after I watched it recently, it’s still was not familiar to me.
It’s amazing to me how Michael studied so many old dancer and movies and was able to come up with so many spectacular moves.
Double Click on the player to view this very short video in full screen.
How did Michael and the dancers perform that Lean?
In the Video:
In the video they used special harnesses with wires and magnets. However they couldn’t do the same during a live stage show for obvious reasons so Michael and his team had to come up with another way.
On October 26, 1993 Michael Jackson patented the props need for this particular move. The props consisted of pegs that would rise from the stage when needed and special shoes with ankle supports and cutouts in the heels that slid over the pegs becoming temporarily attached to the stage. This allows the dancers to seemingly defy gravity by leaning way beyond their center of gravity.
The popular dance group Diversity copied Michael Jackson’s very famous Smooth Criminal lean in the third series of Britain’s Got Talent.
If you want to see how they applied it in their dance performance, just play the video to the left.
Double Click on the player to view this very short video in full screen.
The image below is from a patent filed by Michael Jackson on October 26, 1993 that describes the method of leaning beyond the center of gravity, a move done in the “Smooth Criminal” video.
- michael jackson smooth criminal
- michael jackson FULL SONG DANCE SMOTH CRIMINAL
- In which famous Michael Jackson video did he do the notorious lean
- In which famous Michael Jackson video did he do the notorious lean?
- smooth criminal chinese lady
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Love that lean – how creative is Michael? Not only did he come up with the dance – he patented a shoe so this could be done live on stage. The man was a genius.
Rest in Peace Michael