Take the lead

Pierre is a ballroom-dance instructor with courtly manners whose pupils tend to be well-heeled teenagers. Partly as a dare and partly as a joke, he is offered the job of supervising a South Bronx high school detention class, where the students regard him as a visitor from the moon. They resist him, but he fascinates them, and before long, Pierre has talked them into learning a few steps. He even suggests that if they work hard enough, they might have a shot in a citywide dance competition, which offers a first prize of $5,000. As they morph into Astaire's and Charisse's, and as Pierre's lessons instill self-mastery, self-restraint, and self-respect, these previously aimless kids blossom into confident, self-possessed young adults.