Plot
John Travolta graduated from minor celebrity to superstar with Saturday Night Fever. Travolta plays Tony Manero, a Brooklyn paint-store clerk who'd give anything to break out of his dead-end existence. In life, Tony is a peasant; on the disco dance floor, he's a king. As the soundtrack plays one Bee Gees hit after another (including "Stayin' Alive"), we watch white-suited Tony strut his stuff amidst flashing lights and sweaty, undulating bodies. Tony's class aspirations are mirrored in his relationship with his dance partner, Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney), a secretary eager to move into the glamorous world of Manhattan. Saturday Night Fever's huge success grew meteorically thanks to the towering popularity of its soundtrack; during the first half of 1978, when the movie's disco songs saturated the singles charts up to four at a time, it was no longer clear whether the hit movie was feeding the hit songs or the hit songs were feeding the hit movie. This crossover between music and movies set the pace for many movies to come, as it also marked the rise and fall of 1970s disco culture. Two versions of this film exist: the original R-rated version and a PG version, edited down to more "family-friendly" fare and fed to the public with the tagline, "Because we want everyone to see John Travolta's performance." ~ Hal Erickson, RoviReview
From the moment John Travolta strutted down a Brooklyn street to "Stayin' Alive" at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever (1977), music movies and pop culture were irrevocably changed. Unlike subsequent music blockbusters like Grease (1978) and Footloose (1984), Fever's depiction of one youth's escape at the local disco and tentative dreams for a better life in Manhattan astutely balanced galvanizing dance numbers with a gritty sense of contemporary economic malaise. Dance numbers, the Bee Gees soundtrack, and Travolta's white-suited presence, however, were the marketing hooks. With the release of Bee Gees singles timed to sell the movie and the movie becoming an ad for the soundtrack, Fever set the standard for marketing synergy several years before MTV, as the soundtrack became one of the best-selling albums of all-time and the film grossed over 100 million dollars. The once-underground disco movement turned into a late-'70s mainstream pop phenomenon; and TV idol Travolta, bolstered by an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, became a movie superstar and cultural emblem of the 1970s. While Travolta's career, like disco, suffered in the 1980s, his status was restored in the 1990s -- aided, no doubt, by '90s nostalgia for the '70s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, RoviCast
- John Travolta - Tony Manero
- Karen Gorney - Stephanie
- Barry Miller - Bobby C.
- Joseph Cali - Joey
- Paul Pape - Double J.
Credit
Lester Wilson - Choreography, James Gambina - Consultant/advisor, Jo-Jo Smith - Consultant/advisor, Patrizia Von Brandenstein - Costume Designer, Jennifer Nichols - Costume Designer, John Badham - Director, David Rawlins - Editor, Kevin McCormick - Executive Producer, The Bee Gees - Composer (Music Score), Barry Gibb - Composer (Music Score), Maurice Gibb - Composer (Music Score), Robin Gibb - Composer (Music Score), David Shire - Composer (Music Score), Barry Robin - Composer (Music Score), Max Herriquez - Makeup, Charles Bailey - Production Designer, Ralf Bode - Cinematographer, Kevin McCormick - Producer, Robert Stigwood - Producer, John Godfrey - Set Designer, John Reitz - Sound/Sound Designer, Les Lazarowitz - Sound/Sound Designer, Robert W. Glass, Jr. - Sound/Sound Designer, John K. Wilkinson - Sound/Sound Designer, Paul Nuckles - Stunts Coordinator, Norman Wexler - Screenwriter, The Bee Gees - Musical Performer, Nik Cohn - Short Story Author| Saturday Night (2010 Film), Saturday Night (2000 Film) | |
| Saturday Night Live: 25 Years of Laughs (1999 Film), Saturday Night Live: 25 Years of Music (2003 Film) |
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