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| Saturday Night Fever (1977)
 
Starring:
John Travolta, Karen Gorney, Donna PescowDirector: John Badham Rating: R Category: Drama  |
Like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band had done a decade before, so too did “Saturday Night Fever” bring an entire generation together by giving it a soundtrack (as well as a film). It defined its particular moment in time and became a monumental success clear across the board in terms of not only sales, but also as an influence on fashion, attitudes and the media itself. The film opened the floodgates for plenty of copycats, none of which even came within striking distance in comparison. But then again, it’s hard to fathom something like “Can’t Stop the Music” being anything less than mediocre. “Saturday Night Fever” was its own revolution.
Based on the article “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” by Nik Cohn, the movie features John Travolta as Tony Manero, a paint shop employee who lives for nothing but dancing at the 2001 club every chance he can get. He prides himself on his hair, his body and his moves. Indeed, Tony’s got the moves. And poor little Annette (Donna Pescow) loves those moves and wants to be Tony’s dance partner, but gets dumped for the “classically trained” Stephanie (Karen Gorney), who Tony teaches a thing or three about disco dancing and sleazy moves of another kind.
“Saturday Night Fever” pushed Travolta into the Hollywood spotlight. “Carrie” hadn’t quite done it for him, and he was already getting too big for the screen on TV’s “Welcome Back, Kotter.” But this film would prove to be the perfect vehicle for him and would be the first of many box office smashes for the actor (it’s still hard to tell after all this time whether it was Travolta as Manero in this flick or as Danny Zuko in “Grease,” a year later, that was the more popular all around).
The rest of the cast is a take it or leave it bunch. Pescow portrays Annette with such panache that it’s often a little difficult to watch her scenes with Travolta where he’s treating her like shit, not realizing the girl seriously digs him and doesn’t want to be just another lay. On the other hand, you have Karen Gorney who is still a bone of contention for many fans. It probably has a lot to do with that annoying accent of hers, but her acting chops weren’t really anything to get worked up about in general. She’s always come off more as an annoying ditz than a serious leading lady in this film, giving even more credence to Travolta’s performance. Still, it’s about the dancing, the music and the vibe, and these of course are the true stars here.
You can’t mention the title of the movie without the phenomenal soundtrack popping into your head. Above all else, it was the killer Bee Gees tunes used in the film that sold the whole package. You have two previous hits (“Jive Talkin’” and “You Should Be Dancing”) along with four new ones (“Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love,” “Night Fever,” and “More Than a Woman,” not to mention penning Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You”). Combined, these songs perfectly defined the disco era. You couldn’t get any better than the Bee Gees then. They were the Steely Dan of disco when it came to studio perfection with every note in place. And all of their songs featured in the film still hold up today, which is more than you can say for 90 percent of other disco hits of the time.
The rest of the soundtrack was nothing to sneeze at, either. You had Walter Murphy’s novelty item “A Fifth of Beethoven,” KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Boogie Shoes,” Ralph MacDonald’s percussion masterpiece “Calypso Breakdown” and Kool & The Gang’s “Open Sesame” to name a few. Some of these were already a couple years old, but gained massive radio play once again when the soundtrack hit the store shelves. When does something like that happen these days? And considering that disco was on its way out when the movie was released, and seeing how it went from an underground sort of experience to this mainstream explosion afterward, the whole package was just one phenomenal movement. Hell, it was so big that it had a re-cut PG-rated version shipped out to theaters to bring the kiddies in and gross even more money.
This new “30th Anniversary Collectors Edition” DVD of “Saturday Night Fever” contains the same commentary as on the 2002 DVD edition, but also contains a slew of new featurettes. Some of these are completely disposable such as the “’70s Discopedia” and “Dance Like John Travolta” portions. Others are more interesting from a music junkie’s standpoint like “Making Soundtrack History” in which Barry and Robin Gibb recount the Bee Gees’ work on the soundtrack, and how huge the whole thing became after the film’s release, and the “Deejays and Discos” featurette with a look back at how disco influenced the dance clubs and the guys who spun the records at them. You also get other items like the “Platforms and Polyester” and “Back to Bay Ridge” featurettes, which you’ll probably watch once -- if that -- and then forget about later.
But hey, it’s “Saturday Night Fever” -- again. The 5.1 mix sounds excellent and the print quality is of course top notch. As for the film in its own right, it’s undoubtedly not as momentous as the movement it created, but it’s still very important simply for having created that movement. It’s a complete package, as it were. The music, the dance moves, the clothes, the colorfully lit dance floors – all of these make up the package, and each part is important to the other. Above all else, “Saturday Night Fever” took disco seriously and in turn disco became some serious entertainment.
~Jason Thompson
jthompson@bullz-eye.com
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