Saturday Night Fever

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Saturday Night Fever
US movie poster for Saturday Night Fever
Directed by	John Badham
Produced by	Robert Stigwood
Written by	Nik Cohn (magazine article) Norman Wexler
Starring	John Travolta Karen Lynn Gorney
Music by	Barry Gibb Maurice Gibb Robin Gibb David Shire
Cinematography	Ralf D. Bode
Editing by	David Rawlins
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	December 14, 1977 1978 (PG rated version) (USA)
Running time	119 min. 112 min. (PG rated version)
Language	English
Followed by	Staying Alive
IMDb profile

Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 film starring John Travolta as Tony Manero, a troubled Brooklyn youth whose weekend activities are dominated by visits to a Brooklyn discotheque. While in the disco, Tony is the king, and the visits help him to temporarily forget the reality of his life: a dead-end job, clashes with his unsupportive and squabbling parents, racial tensions in the local community, and his associations with a gang of dead-beat friends.

The movie significantly helped to popularize disco music around the world, and made Travolta a household name. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring disco songs by the Bee Gees, became the best selling soundtrack ever.

The film also showcased aspects of the music, the dancing, and the subculture surrounding the disco era: symphony-orchestrated melodies, haute-couture styles of clothing, sexual promiscuity, and graceful choreography.

The story is based upon a 1976 New York magazine article by British writer Nik Cohn, Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night. In the late-1990s, Cohn acknowledged that the article had been fabricated. A newcomer to the United States and a stranger to the disco lifestyle, Cohn was unable to make any sense of the subculture he had been assigned to write about. The characters who were to become Tony Manero and his friends sprang almost completely from his imagination.

The film is also notable for being one of the first instanceses of cross media marketing, with the tie-in soundtrack's single being used to help promote the film before its release and the film popularizing the entire soundtrack after its release.

1 Story
2 Versions and sequel
3 Cast and roles include
4 Soundtrack
5 Filming locations include
6 Notes
7 Academy Awards
8 West End Casts (1998-1999, 2004-2006)
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story of the film has Tony Manero connect with the aloof Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) one night at the disco. Despite her initial frosty and superior attitude toward Tony, she agrees to partner with him in the dance contest after much urging. Tony had previously agreed to dance with Annette, who had actively pursued Tony, despite his obvious disdain for her. Stephanie has a job in Manhattan and is poised to move there. This awakens in Tony the need to transcend his working-class roots of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. However, Stephanie herself ultimately reveals her own vulnerabilities.

Also examined through the film is Tony's relationship with his family, including an older brother who abandons a planned career in the priesthood, and his association with his friends.

[edit] Versions and sequel

movie poster of PG version of Saturday Night Fever

The unsentimental depiction of the subculture of the main characters contrasts with Travolta's follow-up film, the sanitized Grease (1978).

There were two theatrically-released versions of the film: the "original" R version and the PG "edited version." The R-rated version is 119 minutes. The PG-rated version was released in 1978 as an attempt to attract a more youthful audience. It is 112 minutes, with profanity replaced by separately-filmed scenes that substituted milder language that were intially filmed for the network television cut of the film, and with several scenes shortened or cut. Both theatrical versions were released on VHS, but only the R-rated version was released on LaserDisc and later on DVD, and the DVD version is shown in widescreen only. In addition, a network television version, based primarily on the PG version, contains several minutes of outtakes deleted from the theatrical releases. However starting in the late 1990's VH1 and Turner Network Television started showing the original R rated version. (Edited of course but with some of the stronger innuendos from the original included that were cut out of the PG version.)

The R-rated version contains scenes of profanity, nudity, drug use and a date-rape scene which has been deemphasised or completely removed from the PG version.

A sequel, Staying Alive, was released in 1983. It starred John Travolta and was directed by Sylvester Stallone.

The story was also done as a hit musical stage production in both London and on New York's Broadway.

[edit] Cast and roles include

John Travolta - Tony Manero
Karen Lynn Gorney - Stephanie Mangano
Barry Miller - Bobby C.
Joseph Cali - Joey
Paul Pape - Double J.
Donna Pescow - Annette, a former girlfriend of Tony, still in love with him
Bruce Ornstein - Gus
Julie Bovasso - Flo Manero, Tony's mother
Martin Shakar - Frank Manero Jr., Tony's brother
Sam Coppola - Dan Fusco, paint store owner, Tony's boss
Nina Hansen - Grandmother
Lisa Peluso - Linda Manero, Tony's sister
Denny Dillon - Doreen
Bert Michaels - Pete
Robert Costanzo - Paint store customer
Robert Weil - Becker
Shelly Batt - Girl in disco
Fran Drescher - Connie
Donald Gantry - Jay Langhart
Murray Moston - Haberdashery salesman
William Andrews - Detective
Ann Travolta - Pizza girl (Travolta's sister)
Helen Travolta - Lady in paint store (Travolta's mother)
Ellen March - Bartender
Monti Rock III - The deejay
Val Bisoglio - Frank Manero Sr., Tony's father
Roy Cheverie - The wrong partner (uncredited)
Adrienne King - Dancer (uncredited)
Alberto Vasquez - Gang member (uncredited)

[edit] Soundtrack

Main article: Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack)

Track listing:

"Stayin' Alive" performed by Bee Gees - 4:45
"How Deep Is Your Love" performed by Bee Gees - 4:05
"Night Fever" performed by Bee Gees - 3:33
"More Than a Woman" performed by Bee Gees - 3:17
"If I Can't Have You" performed by Yvonne Elliman - 3:00
"A Fifth of Beethoven" performed by Walter Murphy - 3:03
"More Than a Woman" performed by Tavares - 3:17
"Manhattan Skyline" performed by David Shire - 4:44
"Calypso Breakdown" performed by Ralph MacDonald - 7:50 (*)
"Night on Disco Mountain" performed by David Shire - 5:12
"Open Sesame" performed by Kool & the Gang - 4:01
"Jive Talkin'" performed by Bee Gees - 3:43 (*)
"You Should Be Dancing" performed by Bee Gees - 4:14
"Boogie Shoes" performed by KC and the Sunshine Band - 2:17
"Salsation" performed by David Shire - 3:50
"K-Jee" performed by MFSB - 4:13
"Disco Inferno" performed by Trammps - 10:51

(*) "Calypso Breakdown" and "Jive Talkin'" were not contained in the film.

The novelty song "Disco Duck" was played in the film, in a humorous scene, but was not included on the album.

[edit] Filming locations include

Verrazano Narrows Bridge
2001 Odyssey (later renamed Spectrum) night club -- 802 64th Street, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York. Demolished in 2005.

[edit] Notes

Saturday Night Fever was the favorite movie of the late film critic Gene Siskel, who claimed to have seen it 17 times. He liked the movie so much, he bought the famous white disco suit (worn by Travolta in the movie) at a charity auction.
Madonna's video for her 2005 hit single "Hung Up" is an homage to a scene from Saturday Night Fever. It was the scene at the rehearsal studio where John Travolta's character Tony Manero first approaches Karen Lynn Gorney's character Stephanie Mangano. Stephanie is practicing her disco dancing moves to the David Shire song "Manhattan Skyline" when Tony tries to break the ice by saying, "Hello Stephanie Mangano. I'm Tony Manero. We both got the same last initials. How do you like that?" In the video, Madonna is wearing almost exactly the same leotard and tights set that Stephanie wears in the film, and there is wood paneling and a wooden barre much like in the rehearsal space Stephanie uses for this scene. Madonna also did a remix during her latest world tour, the Confessions Tour in 2006, following her well-sold worldly successful album Confessions on a Dance Floor(2005). She continued dedicated the Saturday Night Fever disco style by performing a new remix to her old. The remix was the instrumental of Disco Inferno from Saturday Night Fever mixing with Madonna's hit song Music from 2000. Madonna danced to Music Inferno in a white suit with purple shirt which was the Travolta style, and had a routine similar to Travolta's famous solo dance in Saturday Night Fever. Her opening performance and end performance to Music Inferno at the Confessions Tour were exact pose as John Travolta did for the Saturday Night Fever posters and DVD covers. Madonna similarly had borrowed some routines from the the scene of the final competition at 2001 Odessey, when Tony and Stephanie were into the groove.
Most people are familiar with the song "K-Jee" which was in the scene in the dance contest during the Hispanic couple that competed against Tony and Stephanie. Some VHS cassettes used a more traditional Latin-style song instead. The DVD restores the original recording.
In some parts of Brazil, "Manero" is said as a compliment, when a person is cool, dances well, and attracts attention.
Tony Manero was the name of a real American golfer.
John Belushi parodied the film as "Samurai Night Fever", one of his "Samurai" sketches. O.J. Simpson appears in this sketch as the Samurai's brother.
The 1980 film Airplane! contained a parody scene, with Robert Hays mocking the famous pose and the clothing shown on the poster and album cover, to the tune of "Stayin' Alive" slightly sped up (the actual song used for that scene in Saturday Night Fever was "You Should Be Dancing").
The Goodies parodied the film in their Saturday Night Grease episode.
The original title for this film was "The Tribal Rites Of Saturday Night"
In Anurag Mathur's book The Inscrutable Americans, the protagonist Gopal is inspired by the way Travolta dances and refers to Saturday Night Fever as an 'educational' movie about America.
John Travolta still has the pair of high-heeled shoes he wore during the opening and dance sequences of the film (as depicted in the poster). He says he sometimes takes them out of the closet, but claims he doesn't wear them.
This film is banned in Malaysia.
The Children's Television Workshop published a record album of music from Sesame Street under the title Sesame Street Fever, the cover of which featured a picture of muppet Grover wearing the white three-piece disco suit in the famous Travolta pose.
The film was one of the inspirations for the short-lived sitcom Makin' It, whose main character was a devotee of the film.
In the club, a woman begs to kiss Tony and gushes "it was like kissing Al Pacino!" Later, while looking at a poster of Al Pacino in the mirror, Tony comes out of his room shouting Attica! Attica! Attica! from the famous film of Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon
The male human dance and parts of the male dwarf dance in the MMORPG World of Warcraft is taken from this film.
The illuminated dance floor was inspired by one Badham had seen at "The Club", a private supper club in Birmingham, Alabama.
Amy Irving auditioned for the role of Stephanie, later won by lesser known- then soap actress Karen Lynn Gorney.