Provided you have a reasonable knowledge of the thematic genre this is probably the easiest Cinephile you are ever likely to come across.
The meaning of D[ance] came rapidly from solving the first clue, and was confirmed by the third, which made the rest of the puzzle quite straightforward, though 10dn does not appear in any of the usual references and required some familiarity with jazz musicians.
Across
1 BOLERO OLE (cry of approval) in BRO (relative)
4 PHYSIC HYS[teria] in PIC (film)
8 GAVOTTE VOT[e] (put cross without point) in GATE (entry)
9 PLEURAL *(ALL PURE)
11 CHARLESTON LEST (in case) in CHARON (ferryman)
12 FÖHN OF reversed H (hospital) N (north)
13 PICOT PIC[k] (nearly choose) OT (books)
14 FLAMENCO FLAME (fire) NCO (sergeant)
16 HONEYDEW NEY (marshal) DE (of French) in HOW
18 POLKA [f]OLK (top people) in PA (Pennsylvania)
20 JIVE [had]J I’VE (setter’s)
21 TURKEY TROT TURKEY (country) TROT (left winger)
23 BEGUINE BE (live) GUINE[a] (money without a)
24 MAZURKA AZ (extremes) in MURK (fog) A
25 TREMOR *(TORREM[olinos])
26 STREAM *(STREAM)
Down
1 BEACH homophone of ‘beech’ (tree)
2 LEOFRIC LEO (sign) FRI (day) C (100) – the husband of Lady Godiva
3 RETREATED dd
5 HELEN HE (man) LEN (boy) – Helen of Troy
6 SHUFFLE d&cd – what you do to a pack of cards before dealing them
7 CHA-CHA-CHA cd
10 STAFF WORK FATS (Waller) reversed W (west) in FORK (division) – Fats Waller, jazz pianist
13 PROMINENT MINE (excavation) in PRONT[o] (almost immediately)
15 APPLECART *(PLACE TRAP)
17 EXECUTE dd
19 LETTUCE LET (allow) TUC (unions) [th]E
21 TANGO TANG (zest) O (love)
22 OAKUM OAK (tree) UM (let me see)
Small typo in 18a
I’ve got to agree, the quickest I’ve ever solved a Cinephile….barely left the station before completing it.
Thanks Ferret, typo corrected (I don’t know how I managed to hit F instead of K).
I too found the theme straightaway after JIVE looked like an answer. However I did not find it as easy as the blogger and commenter though it was not extremely difficult.
I entirely agree with Gaufrid (good blog!) and Ferret. From BOLERO at 1a this was a breeze and the quickest Cinephile I have ever solved.
There were some good clues: but even FOHN was a breeze! (Sorry, can’t do umlauts!).
Hi JamesM
Try Alt + 153 (on the numeric keypad) and then you will get an Ö. A list of Alt+ codes can be found in several places on the web so that one can use non-keyboard characters. Unfortunately I have recently migrated to a new pc and do not have a suitable site bookmarked otherwise I would have added a link.
Gaufrid
Thank you. It works!
Now I know how, goodness knows what I will prÖduce in the future!