Saturday Night Fever.

Review #1456: Saturday Night Fever.

Cast: 
John Travolta (Anthony "Tony" Manero), Karen Lynn Gorney (Stephanie Mangano), Barry Miller (Bobby C.), Joseph Cali (Joey), Paul Pape (Double J.), Donna Pescow (Annette), Bruce Ornstein (Gus), Val Bisoglio (Frank Manero, Sr.), Julie Bovasso (Flo Manero), and Martin Shakar (Frank Manero, Jr.) Directed by John Badham (#086 - Short Circuit and #1293 - Dracula)

Review: 
"My mother was an acting teacher. She taught more of the existentialist style, which was that acting is believing that you're in the moment with the other actor, and I like that. I'm more comfortable portraying what I'm feeling at the moment and not knowing what I'm going to do next."
Some films are just made to endure for their era, for better or worse. The film was inspired by a story in New York magazine called "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", written by Nik Kohn as a supposed detailing of the disco scene of the time (it was revealed two decades later to be a lie by Kohn, with the lead focus being inspired by a person in the mod culture that he knew in the 1960s). It should only figure that this was the film that helped John Travolta become a major star. The son of a tire salesman and an actress/teacher, he had dropped out of high school at 17 to do work in the stage (such as starring in a small role with a touring production of Grease). In 1975 (at the age of 21), he caught a break with a role in Welcome Back, Kotter, which he appeared on for four seasons. The film was produced by Robert Stigwood, a music entrepreneur along with film producer behind managing groups such as the Bee Gees along with film productions like Grease (1978) and Gallipoli (1981).
Another person who was helped by the success of this film was John Badham, who had done plenty of television work earlier in the decade and one previous theatrical film (The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings) that found his way into the film after John G. Avildsen was fired due to creative differences before shooting.

It's funny, for a film so popular like this one, I am surprised that there were actually two versions of this film that were put into theaters. With such a vibrant soundtrack and diverting dance sequences, it could almost be easy to forget the grimy realism that permeates throughout this 119 minute film. In response to the youth response to the soundtrack, Paramount Pictures released a PG-rated edit of the film two years later, which de-emphasized/cut out sequences involving profanity (some involving racial epithets said by some of the characters involving Puerto Ricans) along with references to drugs and a car scene near the end of the film (which involved the rape of one character along with the attempt of another character), with the end result being a 109 minute film. The version I watched was the director's cut, which re-incorporated two deleted scenes into the original film. If one looked at the film without the disco elements, what you see is a film wrapped with the question of what it means to try and live a life beyond the dance floor. One can't dance in a night club or hang out near a bridge talking the same jokes or things forever - in other words, we have to grow up sometime and do some sort of thing with our life beyond the little things we think is all to living. In this sense, Travolta does a tremendous job with making a fascinating lead to follow, a riveting and generally charming performance when on screen - whether on the dance floor or when dealing with the long and winding road of trying to grow up beyond Brooklyn. The others match up fine with making the moments in and out of the dance floor feel real enough, with Gorney and Miller leading the pack with fairly compelling turns when paired with Travolta wherever it wants to go. Although it is a film very much of its era (with fashion and disco, which had a decline in popularity just two years after release), it is a film with a basic foundation that can still apply today with a catchy beat, impactful moments of realism and a tremendous star turn for Travolta that makes it a worthy film to seek out then and now.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.