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This article is about the film. For the stage musical, see Saturday Night Fever (musical). For the soundtrack album, see Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack).
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 local discothèque. 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, tensions in the local community, and his associations with a gang of dead-beat friends. A huge commercial success, 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 at that time and held the record until 1999 when soundtrack to The Bodyguard overtook it. The film is also notable for being one of the first instances 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. 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[1]. 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 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.
[edit] StoryThe film is about 19-year-old Tony Manero (John Travolta), a young Italian American man from Brooklyn who works a dead-end job in a small hardware store by day, but rules the dance floor at night with his frequent appearances at 2001 Odyssey, a Brooklyn dance club. While at 2001 Odyssey, Tony is seen in the company of his three close friends, Joey (Joseph Cali); Double J (Paul Pape); and the meek Bobby C. (Barry Miller), still in high school. It's presumed Bobby C., though younger, is part of the gang because he is the only one with a car (a run-down Chevrolet Impala). An informal member of their gang is Annette (Donna Pescow), a plain-looking girl who is infatuated with Tony. Tony, knowing Annette has the right moves to win an upcoming dance competition, recruits her to participate with him in the contest, much to her delight. Her happiness is short-lived, however, when Tony abruptly terminates their partnership after seeing Stephanie Mangano at the dance club. Stephanie is an attractive, talented dancer with what Tony assumes is a more committed attitude. Despite her initial frosty and superior attitude toward Tony, after much urging, Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) agrees to partner with him in the contest. Stephanie works in Manhattan as a secretary for a magazine; she is poised to move there and has more opportunities to work her way up. This awakens in Tony the need to transcend his working-class roots of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. However, Stephanie ultimately reveals her own vulnerabilities to Tony. Also examined in the film is Tony's relationship with his family, including Frank Jr., Tony's older brother and clearly his parents' favorite, who abandons a career in the priesthood. Tony's mother dotes on Frank Jr., who shatters his parents' dreams of what he refers to as "pious glory." This may be partly because Frank Jr. no longer wishes to spend his life in celibacy, but mainly, as he tries to explain to Tony, because he has doubts about his faith and is disillusioned with the Church. Bobby C., who looks up to Tony, asks him for advice for getting out of his relationship with his devoutly-Catholic girlfriend Pauline, who is pregnant with his child. Though Tony tells him to dump her, Bobby C. faces pressure from his family and others to marry her, which he clearly doesn't wish to do. After she refuses to get an abortion, Bobby asks Frank Jr. if Pope Paul VI would grant him dispensation for an abortion. Bobby's feelings of despair deepen when Frank tells him dispensation would be highly unlikely. Double-J and Joey are Tony's more like-minded friends, macho, foul-mouthed, bigoted, chauvinistic, and with hair-trigger tempers. They engage in wild behavior such as balancing themselves along the dangerous railing of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, often while in varying states of drunkenness. Another member of the gang is beaten up by some Puerto Rican youths and is put in a hospital. Tony, Double-J and Joey vow revenge and storm a Puerto Rican bar frequented by the Barracuda gang only finding out later that they were not the antagonists. On the evening of the dance competition at 2001 Odyssey, Tony and Stephanie finish their dance to wild applause. The last couple to compete, however, is a Puerto Rican duo whom Tony realizes has blown him and Stephanie away after seeing their spectacular performance. Nevertheless, Tony and Stephanie take the top prize, which Tony immediately dismisses, claiming the contest was rigged in his favor (because of his popularity at 2001). He grabs the trophy and prize money from Stephanie and presents them to the Puerto Rican couple (who took second) instead, telling them they deserve it. Angry, Tony accuses his friends of being phonies who won't be honest with him. Dragging Stephanie with him, he attempts to force himself on her in the car until she fights him off and escapes. He then sullenly takes off with the gang, along with a drunk and high Annette, whom Joey says is going to "give everybody a piece." Double-J and Joey both take turns with Annette, but Annette starts to cry after she realizes she actually does not want to have sex with them. They pull the car off the bridge, but this time, Bobby C., who normally stays in the car, joins them, and is attempting more dangerous stunts than Tony, Double-J, and Joey. Realizing that Bobby is acting recklessly, Tony tries to coax him off the railing. Upset at his lonely life, his situation with Pauline, and a broken promise from Tony earlier that he would call him, the needy Bobby rants at Tony's lack of care, and accidentally slips, falling to his death. The friends are shocked and grief-stricken. When a policeman called to investigate the incident asks Tony if he thinks Bobby C. committed suicide, Tony responds, "There are ways of killin' yourself without killin' yourself". A distraught Tony spends the rest of the night riding the subway. He finally shows up at Stephanie's apartment, apologizing and saying that he wanted to try and salvage their relationship by being friends first... and see what develops from there. Recognizing Tony's honest wish to change, Stephanie takes his hand in hers, and then him into her arms in this final scene. [edit] Versions and sequel
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 113 minutes, with profanity replaced by separately-filmed scenes that substituted milder language that were initially filmed for the network television cut of the film (such as a scene where Tony's dad gets his old job back), 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. (However, some of the extra scenes from the PG version were included as "deleted scenes" for the DVD release.) 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 1990s VH1 and Turner Network Television started showing the original R rated version with a TV-14 rating. (Some of the language and nudity had been edited out but including some of the innuendos from the original that had been 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 de-emphasised 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. [edit] Cast and roles include
[edit] SoundtrackTrack listing:
(*) "Calypso Breakdown" and "Jive Talkin'" were not contained in the film.
[edit] Filming locations include
[edit] Trivia
[edit] Academy Awards
[edit] See also[edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
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