Saturday Night Fever - Lets Discuss!

[quote]John was flaming hard

You couldn't bother to proofread your own post?

R1 I know... shame on me. It was too late, my hand couldn’t stop the processing button. Damn me!

It's a well-made film. Travolta is excellent in it. But it's a very dark film.

Interesting that both this film and Looking for Mr. Goodbar have great disco soundtracks and are set in disco clubs, but the films are actually quite downbeat and gritty.

Gorgeous. The opening scene? Hot. I love how Travolta eats pizza in the opening scene. The dance moves and costumes are clownish but the soundtrack is hot and so is Travolta. The women leads look like hags in comparison to Travolta.

My favorite part: "How Deep Is Your Love?" comes up after Barry Miller's character jumps / falls off the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge into New York Bay.

The article that the screenplay was adapted from (I think it originally ran in the New Yorker) was largely fabricated, according to its author.

It's been said before but DL fave Donna Pescow should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She's terrific in the film, and she's a better dancer than Karen.

More about "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," by Nik Cohn, from New York magazine:

Stephanie was "beautiful and talented?" She was neither. But poor dumb Tony thought she was a step up from girls like Annette (she wasn't).

I also love the How Deep Is Your Love scene.

Stephanie's UWS apartment would cost a bundle today, no way a secretary could come even close to affording it.

Would have been a fantastic movie but for the actress selected to play Stephanie. Not that attractive; no charisma (Travolta had tons of it); and couldn't dance.

Such a critical part and so many women could have made it a great movie. Bizarre choice to say the least.

R7 It's been said before by Donna Pescow.

This movie made a huge impression in me. I thought John was the hottest man in the world and the soundtrack is my all time favorite.

So who would have been a better choice to play Stephanie? Among known actresses at the time? (I really the answer is virtually any other actress, since Gorney was such a poor choice).

**I know the answer**

Little me!

Fran Drescher!

Fun Fact: Kate Mulgrew was being pushed hard for the part of Stephanie, and almost got it. The casting director for SNF was the same casting director for Ryan's Hope, the soap that Mulgrew was on at the time. They easily could've changed Stephanie from Italian to Irish without affecting the story in any way. It could've been interesting.

"Are ya proud of yerself, Annette? Is THIS what ya wanted? Good! Now yer a cunt!"

Fran stood out in her little scene and looked gorgeous, she had the Brooklyneese twang even then.

Kate Mulgrew? The Star Trek Hepburn?

I find that hard to fathom. Can she even dance?

Liked this movie so much I’m gonna watch it again right now, it’s been years.

Thanks, OP.

[quote]Fran stood out in her little scene and looked gorgeous. She had the Brooklynese twang even then.

Queensesque, actually. Flushingesque if you want to get super-specific.

Whilst I never much cared for the film (Travolta though is great in it) it certainly has lasted over the years. Travolta was at peak hotness in it as well. I remember getting all hot and bothered over him in those little black undies. The priest brother was cute too.

Fresh off A Chorus Line, I should be dancing in that movie. 37 but I can pass for 17, right DL?

The music soundtrack is the best!

I actually like Karen Lynn Gorney in this film. I think she and Travolta had great chemistry. Pescow was the better dancer, but I think that was the point. Tony was attracted to Stephanie for more than her dancing - it's what she represented. A better life, away from where he grew up. They both wanted something better for themselves. He knew Annette was destined to stay in Brooklyn.

MY GOD. THE ACTRESS WHO PLAYED THE LEAD IN THIS MOVIE WAS SUCH A BAD ACTRESS THAT HER PERFORMANCE IS CRINGE-WORTHY. THIS BITCH IS SUCH A SHITTY ACTRESS THAT I THOUGHT THIS FILM WOULD BE TORCHED BECAUSE OF HER PERFORMANCE. KAREN GORNEY SHOULD BE TARRED AND FEATHERED!

R29 spill the details! How do you know for a fact.

I never understood why people thought he was hot in that part, he is so dumb.

Gorney was supposed to be around 21 (roughly the same age as Tony) but she looked 35. It's still a great movie, though.

I loved the father freaking out with his one pork chop. I actually LOL.

1. THERE WAS A PG-RATED VERSION OF IT, TOO.

2. IT WAS BASED ON A MAGAZINE ARTICLE THAT TURNED OUT TO BE SEMI-FICTIONAL.

3. THE BEE GEES HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

4. THE SOUNDTRACK ALBUM BROKE ALL KINDS OF RECORDS.

5. THE MOVIE EXTENDED DISCO'S LIFESPAN BY A FEW YEARS.

6. IT HAS SOME ROCKY CONNECTIONS.

7. TRAVOLTA WAS ALREADY SO FAMOUS THAT MAKING THE MOVIE WAS A HASSLE.

8. THE WHITE CASTLE EMPLOYEES WEREN'T ACTING WHEN THEY LOOKED SHOCKED.

9. THE FEMALE LEAD GOT THE PART THANKS TO A SERENDIPITOUS CAB RIDE.

10. TRAVOLTA’S GIRLFRIEND DIED DURING FILMING.

Continued from R34.

11. THE COMPOSER HAD TO SCRAMBLE TO REPLACE A NIXED SONG.

12. THEY MADE UP A DANCE BECAUSE THE CHOREOGRAPHER DIDN'T SHOW UP.

13. TONY’S ICONIC WHITE SUIT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BLACK.

14. TONY’S SUIT WAS LATER SOLD FOR $2000—THEN FOR $145,500.

Turn off the all caps, fuckface.

They begged me to play Stephanie, but I wanted Karen Lynn to have her shot at the A-List!!

In my lifetime, that’s the one movie that propelled people into dance classes. Women wanted to wear high heels to dance, and men wanted to wiggle their booties.

If you say you never put your arms up like Travolta on a dance floor after that movie came out, I’ll call you a liar.

^^^ I never put my arms up like Travolta on a dance floor.

Travolta has never been attractive. Looney toons and can't keep his hands to himself. Banned from many hotels, clubs, etc.

R37 So it wasn't Steven Spielberg & Barbara Streisand that made the studio pick someone else?

when i saw it again later as an adult, i was shocked to see both Angie and the Nanny were in it.

"John was flaming hard in his role in Saturday Night Fever."

You should have seen him flaming in Hairspray.

Didn't the Bee Gees come up with all the songs in something like 6 weeks? They just kind of had fun with it since Disco was so new at that point. They had no idea it was going to be some iconic hit.

This was the first R rated move I ever saw as a kid, my friends mother was cool enough to take a bunch of us there as the adult. I grew up in California, I really had no idea of east coast culture or Italian stereotypes for that matter (even though I am Italian). That movie blew me away, I wanted to be like him, I liked his misunderstood charter that shined in his own private world, his close circle of male friends, he seemed like he was coolest guy on the block, everyone knew who he was when he walked into a club. It was so different from my Brady Bunch style upbringing.

Funny how such a simple piece of entertainment can make an impression.

Karen Lynn Gorney sucked in All My Children and sucked harder in SNF. She semi-ruins this movie for me. And her voice is very nasal and annoying!

i thought the lead actress was supposed to be John’s sugar mommy.

Lucy was up for the female lead, but well, you know Gary....talked her out of it.

PLUS, SHE COULDN'T DANCE!!!! Which is the most hilarious part. I figured she was the director's girlfriend, because she had zero talent, wasn't a great beauty, and it's baffling she auditioned a number of times and some incompetent casting director kept her as a contender for the lead in a major studio movie???? Then the director picked HER as his final choice!!! How is it possible that SHE was the best of the bunch!!! SHE WAS AWFUL!!!

R36 fuckface copied and pasted from the article. The points were in caps. So, it’s not fuckface’s doing.

Leave fuckface alone.

R33 God that dinner scene is depressing. I found the whole movie depressing as a kid.

Jessica Lange was runner-up for the part. Travolta wanted her. Well known and also well known that the director was fucking Gorney, which is why she got the role. Gorney was on AMC and the casting director, Shirley Rich was familiar with both her and Mulgrew from Ryans Hope, both of which she also cast.

I agree Kate Mulgrew would have been very good.

And to think...within a year of this classic film opening, the Bee Gees and Travolta and Robert Stigwood gifted us with not just Grease, but Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Moment by Moment. What a time to be alive.

Verificatia of FUCKFACE size meat?

As an 11 year old - my dream of adulthood was to be travoltas character in SNF. Disco, NYC, dancing all night. Then I hit puberty 3 years later - and they were burning disco records in bonfires and yelling Death to Fags and Disco is Dead. One of the fastest, most extreme shifts in culture in history. The backlash against disco was a backlash against sex and gayness.

There were people who didn't "get" this movie. It was supposed to represent the dismal existence of these young people in Brooklyn. Their lives are so empty, so directionless, so devoid of any purpose or meaning, that their only respite is going to a disco. Tony Manero wants something more of life and he thinks he can find it by dancing in a disco. How sad it that? But some people thought that hanging out in discos was an exciting, glamorous way to spend time. They saw Revolta in his disco outfit and styled hair, shaking his ass and getting oohed and aahed over by onlookers and they thought "Wow! What an amazing lifestyle!" I'm pretty sure that's why the movie was so popular. Its audience saw the sad disco pastime in a positive light.

The best thing about the disco era was men were allowed to to be peacocks - dress flashy, strut their stuff, be aggressively sexual.

My best mate and I used to hit the disco in matching corduroy jumpsuits, navy for him (blonde) and black for me. They had, like, a million zippers, and you could plunge down to THERE.

We had fun.

R55 fuckface does not take orders.

Yes, when you take away the disco flash, SNF is a fairly gritty 70s working-class drama.

Meh. Just a movie about a bunch of guidos. It was no "Next Stop, Greenwich Village. "

Next Stop Greenwich Village was such a disappointment. About a bunch of Italians. Thought it was going to be about gays. I preferred SNF.

This was the first mainstream movie where my mother heard the word cunt. She was scandalised!

Only watch the original R rated version. Paramount cut it a year later for a PG release and then later doubled it with "Grease".

SNF was very highly praised by critics and Grease was panned.

I thought the most heartbreaking part of the movie was the character of Bobby C. Obviously of very low intelligence, all the scenes with him are pathetically sad; the one in the disco where he's trying to get the attention of Tony's former priest brother ("Hey, fathah! Hey, fathah!"), his imploring of Tony to "call me! call me!", and his demise where he dissolves into tears, moaning "you didn't want to talk to me before! Why didn't you call me?" before plummeting to his death. After that happened all I could think was "what's gonna happen to his pregnant girlfriend?", who I would imagine was as dumb as he was.

R65 yes, I wonder why?

R67, because one was a very good movie and one wasn’t.

Best line of the movie:

"Ya happy now, Annette? Now you're a cunt."

Actually I think the best line was "there's ways of killin' yourself without killin' yourself."

[R65] yes, I wonder why?

Because it told the story of high school students who were obviously very stupid because they were 30 years old and still in high school. The scene where Rizzo thinks she's pregnant, everyone in the theater thought, "No honey, that's menopause. "

Funny, I was just thinking of watching that today. It’s a great film. I can remember in high school going to see it the night it opened. It made New York look so glamorous and exciting. Helped fuel my own desire to move there, which I eventually did.

It has lines I use in daily life: “Can you dig it? I knew that you could.” “I know the type, I know the type.” “Delusions of grandeur,” delivered in that tough accent of hers.

John Travolta should've won the Oscar. Richard Dreyfus won that year for his obviously coke-fueled performance in the Goodbye Girl.

Actually Richard Burton should have won that year. He would have deserved it, much more than Travolta or Dreyfuss.

I love Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl but that film has aged horribly. It's so shouty and manic. I still love it, though.

But Travolta's performance is still powerful. It's not only a star-making performance but it's a very strong performance on its own despite all the charisma and the excellent dancing.

I know a lot of people don't like KLG but Travolta really carries their scenes together and there is a tenderness in their scenes that is very affecting. You sense how much Tony is attracted to and fascinated by Stephanie.

The rape scene with Annette in the back seat is really depressing and disturbing. And those shots of Tony reluctantly looking backwards and then Annette starting to cry is very haunting.

I can't imagine them making a film like this today.

R74, Burton was a supporting actor to Peter Firth’s penis.

Andy Warhol was shocked that Travolta didn't win the Oscar.

Is Bay Ridge Brooklyn still a heavily Italian neighborhood or have the demographics changed?

r53. Now that makes sense. Lange would have been ideal as Karen. I can't imagine a stud like Tony mooning and chasing after a brittle little office girl like Karen.

I dunno, Lange would have been distractingly pretty. There was something unlikely about Karen and her rough edges that worked. You could see where a Tony would think her mature and sophisticated, ridiculous as that notion may seem.

Lily Tomlin as Karen.

R81, I mean as Stephanie. Karen was the actress’s name.

R82 we knew what you meant. Great choice.

"Moment by Moment"...what the HELL were Lily Tomlin and John Travolta thinking when they did THAT? Were they both crazy? They must have been.

R84, it was no Sommersby!

I used to live in Bensonhurst during that era, and that movie, and Spike of Bensonhurst, bring back so many memories for me!

I think having Stephanie being nothing special worked really well for the film. Tony is entranced by what she represents rather than the girl herself. When he helps her move into Manhattan and meets the executive who's been using her as a sidepiece, it all falls into place. He begins to see her as a person rather than an icon or a dream girl. That moment, along with rejecting the phony win at the Brooklyn dance contest and seeing his friend end his miserable little life, is when he finally matures enough to leave Bay Ridge and maybe, just maybe, make a different life for himself in Manhattan. (Let's discount the mess that was Stayin' Alive, okay?)

BTW, I always read Bobby C.'s character as desperately in love with Tony. Am I the only one?

[quote]I always read Bobby C.'s character as desperately in love with Tony. Am I the only one?

No. That's the whole point of "How Deep Is Your Love?" following his jump / fall off the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

The sad thing is, what would have actually happened to Tony is he moved to Manhattan, discovered his true sexuality, fucked his brains out for a few years, contracted AIDS, and died of it before he turned 30.

Anyone see “Staying Alive”? Was it really that bad or did it have moments, at least of good dancing?

It's a campy classic--reminiscent of Showgirls, but without all the tits.

Staying Alive is trashy fun. Travolta all muscular and oiled up (was that Stallone's fantasy??), Finola Hughes camping and vamping it up as the bitch, the ghastly Broadway production of Satan's Alley which needs to be seen to be believed, the craptacular Frank Stallone songs. It's terrible but I love it.

I was madly obsessed with this movie as a kid after seeing it on TV by chance and ran out to get the soundtrack. I was only ever allowed to rent the PG version and didn't see the R rated cut until years later and was shocked by how gritty and grimy it was. The boobs, the language, that rape scene...yikes!

I thought I read somewhere that Amy Irving was really close to getting the Stephanie role. She might have been good. Lord knows she was more attractive and charismatic than that girl they ended up with.

Lily's audition

People who only know Saturday Night Fever from the soundtrack are pretty surprised when they actually watch it for the first time. They think it's a fun disco movie, but it's actually very dark and cynical.

Kate Mulgrew? Who always came across as incredibly smart and in charge? She would have made Tony look like a hopeless idiot! He wouldnt gave seemed good enough for her.

No, having him meet a girl who made it out even though she's nothing special actually works. She shows Tony that even the dimwits can improve their lives, which is exactly the lesson he needs to learn.

Why did he work in a paint store when he could have made more money as a sex worker?

[quote]Why did he work in a paint store when he could have made more money as a sex worker?

You think he knew that, r97?

Back in Bensonhurst in those days no Italian would work as a sex worker unless he wanted to be disowned by his family. His mother fed him, washed his clothes, told him what to do, so he wouldn't have been able to hide it from the family.

R9 Roger Ebert did a great job analyzing Tony's relationships with both women.

" The movie's plot involves his choice between Annette (Donna Pescow), the girl who loves him, and Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney), the girl who works in Manhattan and represents his dream of class. In the Scorsese film, the girl really was class (she was a ballerina), but Stephanie is simply a dressed-up version of Annette who got a typing job in an office where famous people (Paul Anka!) sometimes visit.

I've always thought Annette was a better choice for Tony than Stephanie, because Annette has fewer delusions. ("Why do you hate me so much,' she asks him, "when all I ever did was like you?') But Tony can't see that because he can't really see women at all, and in the cruel closing scenes he makes a half-hearted attempt to rape Stephanie, and then sits in the front seat of a car while Annette is being raped in the back by two of his buddies. Of course, at that time, in that milieu, perhaps it wasn't considered rape, but only an energetic form of courtship."

Agree with r87

[quote]Why did he work in a paint store when he could have made more money as a sex worker?

Because Tony Manero was straight and didn't want to have sex with other men.

On Welcome Back Kotter John Travolta was kind of chunky. He came across as quite heterosexual-Even though he wasn't. In Saturday Night Fever he looked SO GAY he slimmed down a lot for that movie and wore those tight tacky outfits.

Gay as he looked in SNF, I thought he looked even gayer in Grease.

Bebe Neuwirth could have played Stephanie. BN has dance training, right age, etc. Fran Drescher as well.

Karen Lynn Gorney was actually OK as Stephanie. Tony was in love with what Stephanie represented (escaping the neighborhood). It wasn't necessary for the character to be extremely charismatic.

I can't see Jessica Lange or Kate Mulgrew as Stephanie.

Stephanie, on her own, could not have afforded her apartment. The sugar daddy did make an appearance in the movie.

R105, or maybe Ann Reinking?

R106, I'm not familiar with Ann Reinking. I looked her up, born in 1949. Would have been ~ 30 at the time of SNF. Maybe too old for that part?

R107, please turn in your gay card.

Reinking, Lange, et al would have seemed far too good for a lummox like Tony.

"On Welcome Back Kotter John Travolta was kind of chunky."

He lost at least 20 pounds for the role in SNF. He WAS out of shape on WBK. But he looked very real, like a regular guy. In SNF he looked fake, artificial. But I guess that was the point. Tony Manero, with his styled hair and tight pants and chest baring shirts and gold chains was trying to be something more than a guy who worked in a paint story. He was pathetically trying to be some kind of disco God. I thought he was more appealing as dumb Vinnie Barbarino. At least he was real.

Oh STFU r108. Not every gay man is a Broadway obsessed shopbottom.

[quote] R107 , please turn in your gay card.

Sorry!

I Wasn’t this Gene Siskel’s favourite movie? Didn’t he buy the white suit?

[quote]In Saturday Night Fever he looked SO GAY he slimmed down a lot for that movie and wore those tight tacky outfits.

Tacky outfits? You do realize it was the 70's. EVERY guy that age looked like that.

Nobody asked me to audition. Bitches, all of 'em.

Of course Annette was the nicer person, but staying with her would have meant a baby every year and dead-end jobs and staying worthless.

Obviously he felt no liking or attraction for Stephanie, she wasn't likeable or attractive... ALL he cared about was getting out. She was an inspiration and a stepping stone to him, and if everyone knew he'd dump.her as soon as he found some chick she'd let him move in, fine. He shouldn't settle down with either, his life hadnt begun yet

Kay Lenz should have played Stephanie. She was the IT girl of the 70s. Debralee Scott as Annette.

Kay Lens peaked in the early 70s.

The costumes are ridiculous, very dated and laughable. But Travolta was in his physical prime in this film, long and lean. He looks good, no delicious even in those asinine bell bottom trousers and high heeled shoes.

R114-You're wrong. If you were an upper middle class white guy from the suburbs of NYC you would NOT be dressing like that nor would you be likely listening let alone dancing to Disco music. I was 12 years old in 1978. I wasn't much aware of the world at large. I was aware of disco music and though it and the hair and clothing styles of the people who were into disco music were TACKY.

What the fuck does a 12 year old know?

I know who would have been perfect as Stephanie. With some gauze over the camera lens this could have been Miss Crawford's swan song.

Disco is not tacky. Some music from this genre is unbelievably bad but that is true about any musical genre. The backlash against disco was a backlash against a musical genre deemed too gay and too "ethnic" . The SNF soundtrack? Still sounds good to me!

I know who would have been perfect as Stephanie. With some gauze over the camera lens this could have been Miss Crawford's swan song

With Lucille Ball as Annette.

"The costumes are ridiculous, very dated and laughable."

They weren't dated in 1977, r119.

The costumer said at one point that Travolta's clothes were bought off the rack, meaning this was what was popular for men in that time period.

Reinking was the breakout star in Over Here which Travolta costarred in. She can't act but Travolta wanted her for the Finola Hughes part in Staying Alive. She would have been even more ridiculous in SNF.

Dancing was not a consideration for the Stephanie character.

Travolta and Reinking and Marilu and Treat

So, inspired by this thread, I re-watched it tonight. Found it terrific as always. I paid particular attention to Karen, and you know what? She felt just right, I wouldn’t change a thing. Think of it, you put Jessica Lange in that part and she’s so pretty she detracts from Travolta‘s beauty. Also, she’s from Minnesota. Karen had that tough street quality to her.

I do agree with Andy Warhol - incredible, funny, poignant, electric, and yes ICONIC performance by John, who deserved the Oscar.

^^^although yes, I realize Karen was a showbiz kid from Beverly Hills. Still.

Marilu Henner could have played Stephanie.

I could see that, R131

I thought Dreyfuss' Oscar that year should have been for "Close Encounters", not the screechy, shit-com "Goobye Girl".

Despite what she is, Stephanie projects as a confident, "better-than-you" bitch. Only when we see her with her "boyfriend" do we understand the act. A better actress could have made the transition more powerful, especially one who already has an image of power like Lange or Mulgrew. The question isn't "who would be better than Gorney" but "who would have been worse". It's a much shorter argument.

Wow, great thread. Lots of information. ❤️

r120, Twelve-year-olds often think that of their elders. I recall thinking when I was around that age that my two Aunts' love of Elvis was stupid and weird.

KLG was perfect in the role because no female in the movie was to look better, dance better, or have more charisma than Tony. Or even come close.

The symbolism of the main (and a few of the minor, like the priest-brother and the suicidal friend with the unseen pregnant gf) characters is actually pretty heavy-handed. As is the title, for fevers are a symptom of internal illness, and need to break for one's return to normal.

Read the cocksucking thread first, R69.

I think they gave it to Dreyfuss for his big year with CE and GG. Travolta was never going to win. If it wasn’t Dreyfuss, it would’ve been Burton. The clip is almost painful to watch, with Burton and that losers smile, going down for the 7th time, just like Glenn earlier this year.

Yes, r120, some of us did consider that clothing tacky who were old enough to be wearing it then. I'm the same age as Tony, or at least the same age as Travolta, and I gave up that awful clothing—which yes, was as ubiquitous as r114 suggests—gradually between 1972 and 1974. I let this girl named Judy take me shopping in December of 1972, and coming home with maroon-and-olive platform shoes, a pair of maroon corduroy elephant bells, and appropriate tops.

I had this awful suit with bell bottoms that I wore with platform boots in the fall of 1973, and wearing it even though I realized how ugly it all was. But then I bought some flat-soled shoes made by Clark's and Levi 501s that Christmas, and a ton of alligator shirts during Watergate (1974) at this men's store that was at the Watergate. Most guys I knew were wearing those awful plastic Nik-Nik shirts. Those I never bought one of.

This would have been a couple of years prior to the SNF article in the NYT, which was published in 1976 IIRC. I remember reading the article, as I was living in NY then, and feeling glad I had nothing to do with that (even though I would go to some gay discos).

There was shock and horror then that the Bee Gees was doing disco.

* the SNF article was in New York Magazine, not the NYT.

The Bee Gees started going disco a couple years earlier, with "Jive Talkin" and the Main Course LP. It pretty much saved their career, which was almost dead at that point.

What do you know, r143? I hadn't realized. Also, Lindsey Buckingham and Richard Dashut were influenced by "Jive Talkin'" in the creation of Fleetwood Mac's "Second Hand News."

Something about Richard Dreyfuss in 1978 reminds me of Gary Frank as Willie Lawrence on FAMILY.

Actually, Travolta's sleek white suit was restrained and elegant by the standards of the 1970s.

[quote]Travolta was in his physical prime in this film, long and lean.

You missed Staying Alive?

As an 11 year-old - my dream was to be Annette getting gang banged in the backseat of the car.

R148, Merry Christmas, Mr. Vice-President!

Annette was perfect casting: Donna Pescow can really act, and what's more, she LOOKED perfect. She had an hourglass 50s figure in the age where coke-thin Cheryl Tiegs and Farrah Fawcett (as pictured on Tony's bedroom walls) were the icons of beauty. But her big tits and childbearing hips mark her out as a nice, old-fashioned girl just like Tony's mom, which is why Tony is desperate to get away from her. She wants to be married just like her sisters, and she's not above trying to trap Tony into it, hence her trying to fuck him while very much NOT on birth control.

Tony was right to run far, far away, unless, as the poster above said, he wanted a baby every year and a back-breaking job painting houses to support that house full of brats.

R147 the only redeeming feature of Staying Alive was Travolta tan and that physique. Best he’s ever looked. In SNF, he was too pale and his eyes were too close together.

Yes, r151. Staying Alive is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. However, I was responding to someone's claim that it was in SNF that Travolta was in his "physical prime," which obviously was not the case.

This movie is very underrated.

Regarding Travolta's bod in the godawful "Stayin' Alive"... sure, it was a great gym bod, if you like shaved torsos, but hr was supposed to be a professional dancer! He was much too muscular and bulky for a dancer, dancers are all lean, toned muscle. And dancers are flexible, Travolta didnt even have enough flexibility to fake dancer's poses in rehearsal.

"Stayin' Alive" is a truly remarkable film, absolutely everything in it is wrong, even the star's workout philosophy.

[quote]the only redeeming feature of Staying Alive was Travolta tan and that physique. Best he’s ever looked. In SNF, he was too pale and his eyes were too close together.

So you're saying he had his eyes moved apart for Staying Alive, r151?

Jessica Lange would’ve done nicely here but it’s probably better for her that she didn’t get the part.

The Postman Always Rings Twice really was the perfect comeback vehicle for her. Not only did she get to beat Meryl Streep for a part a second time, she got to show off opposite Jack Nicholson, whom she flirted with, fucked and thrashed, outshining and stealing the movie from him.

I disagree with a lot of Ebert's excerpt at R100, I never thought of it in those terms of a choice. Technically, Tony made a choice to with dance partner, but not romantically. Even if Annette was his dance partner, he never would have dated her. She was equivalent to Rose on 2 1/2 men.

R116, He was definitely attracted to Stephanie. He zeroed in on her in the club before he knew anything about her. Meeting her is what awoke the sense of wanting better and wanting out in Tony. He wasn't really thinking along those lines until they started talking. She opened up his world to possibilities he didn't think possible. She kept him intrigued with her sense of confidence and her superiority complex. Of course, it was all just an illusion and he found that out when he met her boss.

Whoever cast that actress who played Stephanie should've been exiled from casting for all of eternity. One of the worst decisions in the history of cinema.

r157, the casting decision was made the actress' fucking boyfriend.

Gorney basically disappeared after this movie.

R155 of course not. His tan and his haircut just gave the illusion of a hotter face.

R160, I thought you were talking about Lily Tomlin.

[quote] John was flaming

When was she not?

R162 lmao

At the time of "Staying Alive", Travolta did an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, showing off his oiled and buff body. He looked ridiculous. And the interview was awful. He came across as an egotistical clod. I recall during the interview he said he lost his virginity at age 13. And it may have been this interview (or maybe another one, I can't remember) where he uttered this line "I WAS the seventies."

Travolta was such a hot piece of ass back then......

I can’t help but wonder what would have happened to Annette. She probably got pregnant after the back seat rape. Maybe she would have had an abortion or given the baby to one of her sisters to raise.

Time is such a harsh mistress.....

Annette had something of a breakdown after the rape, and her family shipped her off to relatives in New Jersey. There she met and married a nice Italian boy named Patrick Parisi, and they settled down to have several wonderful children together.

I thought she became a lesbian therapist in Pine Valley and had this incredibly unattractive girl named Devon mooning after her.

Maybe she became a waitress in Philadelphia, where she met and married a nice young pediatrician from a stuffy wealthy family. Hilarity ensues with funny remarks from her mother, played by Doris Roberts, and her sister, played by Debralee Scott.

Regarding Mulgrew, she was pregnant during the 1976-77 academic year (thereabouts) so that could have been a factor in her not being cast.

Exactly R170

R139 LOL

One of those movies that really captures a specific time and place. I wasn't around back then, but it's interesting to see how grimy and "raw" NYC was in those days.

The whole movie just sucks you right into the story and the characters, it was so well done and perfectly cast.

Of course Tony would never consider sex work, as long as he was living with his momma and enmeshed in his neighborhood.

But after he moved to Manhattan and had to make ends meet with no job skills of IQ points and didn't want to go back home... whaddya think?

The character was written as exclusively heterosexual, so sex work wouldn't really be something he would've done. I know many DLers believe every straight man on earth is "heteroflexible" but that's not how it works.

R157 and r158, Personal relationship aside, KLG was suited to the role because we are meant to "see through her" as Tony is unable to. WE know Stephanie isn't headed for greener pastures, better prospects, fancier dance floors. WE hear the naivete and pretension. And the accent.

A more attractive actress might have made dupes of us, too.

Tony Manero is coded very gay, IMHO. He has no true interest in women as sexual creatures: He repeatedly rejects Annette, and his interest in Stephanie is always framed through her skills as a dancer and the upward mobility she represents. Even when he first sees her, he is struck by her simple, Halston-inspired white dress (more fashionable than the ones of the other Brooklynites around her) and remarks on her skills as a dancer. When he follows her around Bay Ridge, he pumps her for information about Manhattan rather than trying to pump HER. Even when he tries to rape her in the car, it's clearly about his anger over the dance contest, not a sudden burst of lust. We never see him trying to have sex with any other girl, and all of his close relationships are with his male friends. At the very end of the film, he and Annette vow to be friends rather than lovers.

Travolta's sexuality aside, my guess is after a year or so in Manhattan, Tony might have had a big epiphany about his sexuality. Of course, that might have been a deadly epiphany, given when and where he was.

*he and STEPHANIE vow to be friends.

Joe Buck wasn't above doing sex work.

The "stage musical", if you can call it that, ruined the story. The eliminated literally every dark element from the plot to make it more family friendly and essentially turned it into "Mama Mia" set in 1970's New York.

The dudes fucked her in the back seat of the car. I, for one, love sloppy seconds.

Netflix sucks!

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How many of those guys in the movie did Travolta suck off?

So who agrees with R178 about Tony being coded gay/closeted?

[quote] The "stage musical", if you can call it that, ruined the story. The eliminated literally every dark element from the plot to make it more family friendly and essentially turned it into "Mama Mia" set in 1970's New York.

I saw in London and I wasn’t terribly impressed with it. It could’ve worked had they not essentially used the PG rated version as a basis for it.

Men in the 1970s were allowed to be less masculine. Shoes with heels, shirts made of softer fabrics like satin and silk, and wearing more jewelry such as gold chain necklaces. Men listened to and danced to the Village People, a group that was gayer than gay. And Alan Alda was a culture icon because he didn't give off an uber-masculine vibe. I think by today's standards, all of this looks gay when it was just the norm. But all of this eventually transitioned in the next decade to the uber-masculinity of Arnold Schwarzenegger and The Terminator.

R187, don’t forget the uber-masculinity of me!

The shirts were Qiana, r187. You know.....

Michael, we first encountered you in the 1960s when you were a little boy. We never stopped seeing that little boy and never thought of you as masculine. It's the Peter Pan syndrome.

R189, nylon like pantyhose?

Why no bulge in those pants? I remember the era and it was VPL central!

R185 & R178 - Tony isn't homosexual, latent or otherwise. I'm an outer-boro Italian, was in HS when the movie came out -- that's just how many not terribly bright or educated guys from that world treated women; the guidos of today aren't all that much different.

Yes, r191, pantyhose in addition to fabrics like Qiana in the '70s nearly made the nylon extinct.

I get that he comes from a misogynistic culture, R193, but Tony's behavior within the film contrasts sharply with his friends Joey and Double J, who are actively trying to get pussy anywhere they can find it. Even Bobby C. knocked a girl up. But Tony is worshiped by all the girls at the disco and is never seen pursuing them. They pursue him, and he DOESN'T take them up on the offers (notice how quickly he rejects Fran Drescher's character when he discovers she's a shitty dancer--how many hetero men would care about that?).

The only time we see Tony having sex is with Annette, and that's in response to her threat to fuck one of his friends if he doesn't fuck her--but he backs out halfway through when she tells him she loves him and isn't on birth control. Contrast with Joey and Double J., who fuck Annette the minute she offers, even though she's clearly high and STILL not on birth control. As I said before, Tony's attempted rape of Stephanie is all about his rage at Bay Ridge, not his lust for Stephanie.

I get that there's more than one way to see the film, but to me Tony Manero comes across as someone in denial about who he really is. But perhaps deep down he knows, and that's why he's so desperate to get out of Bay Ridge and into Manhattan.

R195 - You can certainly see the film that way, but I still disagree and don't think the filmmakers intended for Tony to be a closeted gay -- I do think that they intended Bobby C to be seen as very possibly gay and conflicted.

For me this comes down to the same kind of argument as the casting of KLG - yes it would seem to be "better" if the actress was prettier / more talented, etc -- but as several posters have argued very well above, it would not be actually better for this particular story. This is a dramatic story, and the characters aren't real, complex people, they are all devices created, with varying levels of complexity, to tell and support a particular story. Dramatically it is more interesting for Stephanie to be not all that, but have Tony think she is -- until the end. Dramatically Tony is the peacock narcissist who is more in love with himself, and the attention he gets, than with any other actual flesh and blood person -- unil he begins to realize there may, just may, be more to life than bing the biggest, sexiest fish in the very small pond he happened to be born into.

His character doesn't need to be possibly gay for this story, he already has enough to figure out and overcome without that additional wrinkel. He's frankly not all that interested in sex with anyone, because at the start of his arc he feels nobody is worthy of him. And while he's no genius, he's savvy enough to realize that knocking up a girl will trap him like his father was trapped. But having every girl, and at least one guy, obviously lust after him -- well, as they say in Bay Ridge, that ain't nothing.

R178 &R185 I disagree. Tony is a typical sexist man of the era. He hung around with his bros because he didn't see women as his equals, just something to use, so he couldn't have a real friendship with one. He showed no interest in Stephanie as a person, which is why he didn't ask her questions about herself. To him, she was, yes, a stepping stone, but also a sex object. His lack of interest in Annette was because he wanted a woman as a status symbol. Chubby, neighborhood girl, Annette could never be one.

I agree with the people who said Bobby C. was closeted. I think Bobby C. was gay, but couldn't even admit it to himself.

The closeted homosexual thing is one of the most ridiculous takes on Tony I've ever read. Clearly the poster hasn't seen a rom-com or read chick-lit books where they basically neuter the male lead the minute he meets the heroine to appease the female audience. That's what they did to Tony. They wanted to show how he was different than his friends, not homosexual different, but less provincial in his thinking. Incidentally, Annette was probably one of many who were chasing Tony.

R195 made some good points. But I think Tony's behavior was meant to stand in contrast to the men in his group. Tony was supposed to be at least slightly better than they were. The others' lives were doomed to Saturday nights at the disco, getting married to the first girl they impregnated, etc. I don't think Tony was meant to be gay. However, it was not believable that he would be happy with a platonic friendship with Stephanie.

Feel free to disagree with my main point (as other posters have done above), but let's not make assumptions, R198. Nitpick my argument, not me, unless you just want to come across as an asshole. You also didn't read my posts with much attention, as I pointed out that Tony is chased by MANY girls at the disco, not just Annette.

I can see R196's eloquently stated idea, and identifying Tony as a peacock narcissist who is attracted to nothing so much as his own image is an interesting point. It's certainly supported by the famous early sequence where he's ritualistically preparing himself for the disco and admiring himself in the mirror.

r195 and r178, Tony is shown pursuing women long before he gets to the disco, he chases one woman down in the opening credits. While we see him strutting down the sidewalk, his head is turning to check out women in their Qiana dresses walking the other direction. He stops and turns to follow one, thinks better of it, and turns back around. Later in the strut, he sees a pretty one walk by in a peach-colored dress. He turns, follows and chases her, blocking her on the sidewalk so she can't get past him.

It's currently included with Amazon Prime. I started watching it for the first time years because y'all were discussing things I'd long since forgotten about. I'd totally forgotten his grandmother lived in the house with them and her shock at seeing him walk to the bathroom in nothing but his black briefs.

I read Tony as a teenage pussy hound who is starting to realize there is more to life than chasing pussy, as he leaves his teens.

....

I agree with this r202. And I think with Stephanie he is seeing that women are more than just pussies or housewives. She refuses to be treated like garbage by him and he realizes he needs to earn her respect.

I know KLG's performance is not liked here but I really think she's terrific in the film and I love her chemistry with Travolta. I just can't see Mulgrew or Lange as Stephanie. They are far superior actors, yes, but somehow KLG works.

The scene where she confesses she was living with her co worker and she tells Tony “What do you expect me to do man?” always makes me laugh. KLG was right for the role, but a more skilled actress and you would feel bad for her in her first vulnerable moment with Tony.

R205, and she also says something like "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know" and the audiences howled at her terrible performance in the scene.

That “I don’t know, I don’t know” bit was pretty memorable. It’s goofy, almost like how a real person talks. I don’t mind it at all.

I could believe that Tony wasnt as much of a pussy hound as his friends, because he was afraid of getting a girl pregnant and being trapped into marriage and staying there forever...

IF any straight man who ever lived had ever stopped to think when he was horny.

Someone mentioned Marilu Henner as a possible substitute for Karen Ann Gorney. I think she would have been much better in the role; she was much more attractive and could dance and was a much more appealing performer than Gorney ever was. And she was Travolta's "girlfriend", so there no doubt would have been chemistry between them. In her memoir she talks about her long love affair with "Johnny" and all the hot sex they had. Yech. Anyway, her memoir was entertaining. Marilu was quite a slut.

Wikipedia said that after SNF Gorney took a "lengthy hiatus." where she managed an art gallery. When she did get back to acting it was in small roles in films and guest spots on tv shows. I guess that stands to reason; she never had any great talent. It's amazing she got the role in SNL, considering how ordinary she looked and how mediocre she was as an actress.

But it's odd how she didn't have even ONE credit after SNF until 1991. Not even a television guest role!

I remember as a little kid going to the restaurant he and Karen go to. They had the best Shirley Temples.

I saw a show that it did a retrospective about the film. They interviewed KLG and she said when she was cast she was recovering from major back surgery, plus Travolta was about 10 years younger. She said it was hard to physically keep up with him, he was like a stallion. All the more shocking she was cast. Fran Drescher would have been better, at least she looked the part.

[quote][R185] & [R178] - Tony isn't homosexual, latent or otherwise. I'm an outer-boro Italian, was in HS when the movie came out -- that's just how many not terribly bright or educated guys from that world treated women; the guidos of today aren't all that much different.

And that's why I prefer white guys with a WASP/Scotch/Irish background.

The worst thing about John Travolta having a film career is that, unlike Cloris Leachman who actually won the Oscar for [italic]The Last Picture Show[/italic], he thought he was too good for TV and left it behind, while to fill the void ABC stuck us with Scott Baio and Tony Danza who couldn't even come close to filling said void and only made it bigger. The void got bigger still when they ended up voicing the baby on the godawful [italic]Baby Talk[/italic], the show that prompted a lawsuit from the makers of [italic]Look Who's Talking[/italic], one of the least painful films of Travolta's pre-[italic]Pulp Fiction[/italic] post-1970s career. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures Television moved Julia Duffy onto [italic]Designing Women[/italic] so she didn't have to suffer through this shit.

TV has changed since [italic]Welcome Back, Kotter[/italic] though. The days of "up your nose with a rubber hose" and "what? where?" are long gone, yet I could easily see himself carrying another TV show on streaming. All the other movie stars are doing it.

Interesting contrasts in SNF and Grease. Sandy sluts it up and becomes the popular girl. Annette is raped and is deemed a slut.

[italic]Grease[/italic] is a light, campy, naughty pastiche of the 1950s looking back from the 1970s.

[italic]Saturday Night Fever[/italic] is a dark, gritty, and downbeat you-are-there drama set and made in the 1970s.

Other than being made by Paramount and Robert Stigwood, having the Gibb brothers involved, and being about John Travolta learning not to be a douche towards women, the similarities end there.

R215, the movie is a light campy but the show was much darker and uglier. There's a suggestion that Sandy, who is aiming for a middle class existence, is foiled by Rizzo and must now lead the lower middle class life because of her decision to slut it up to conform to peer pressure. Grease the original onstage and SNF are actually quite similar.

How come they never made a proper follow-up to SNF? SA was terrible (did it bomb)? I read years ago someone involved in the original wanted to make a follow-up that involved the friends and the original cast. Brooklyn Tony was more interesting than Manhattan Tony for sure.

[quote]The worst thing about John Travolta having a film career is that, unlike Cloris Leachman who actually won the Oscar for The Last Picture Show, he thought he was too good for TV and left it behind,

Dude, Cloris Leachman was a long time character actress that moved between movies and TV. Travolta was offered the lead in a small movie and took it and it was a huge hit and he was Oscar nominated. His second was "Grease" which to this day is still one of the most successful movies ever made. He didn't leave TV, TV left him, he had nothing to gain staying in a silly sitcom.

[quote]Annette is raped and is deemed a slut.

Was she raped? I thought she gave it up willingly as an F U to Tony when he rejected her. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, so I don't recall.

[quote]I thought she gave it up willingly as an F U to Tony when he rejected her.

She gave it up willingly with instant regret.

Bright Wall/Dark Room had a good analysis of this film.

Travolta didn't leave Kotter though. He agreed to appear in a certain number of episodes that last season.

Gabe and Marcia didn't even want to do the show anymore by that point (and Gabe also took an extended absence from the show). There really was nothing there for Travolta at that point to consider staying full time.

Travolta had way more success, but Gabe came off as more of a diva. I can only imagine if he was the one who had movie success. He'd probably require that no interviewer mention he ever did TV.

He fulfilled a contractual obligation after shooting the supremely awful [italic]Moment by Moment[/italic].

R218 there was talk of another SNF sequel after the success of Pulp Fiction with Travolta. It probably never went beyond that. Staying Alive should’ve never been made, especially with Stallone directing and co writing it. It had absolutely no grit and substance to it. Karen said she and some of the other actors from the first one were going to be in it, but Stallone wrote them out.

"Grease the original onstage and SNF are actually quite similar."

True. The play was bastardized to become palatable to young audiences; it was refashioned into this fluffy, silly, dopey creation with 30 year old teenagers and Sandy as an Australian exchange student. I heard the writers of the play came around during filming and were aghast at what was being done to their work. They voiced the displeasure...and were banned from the set.

The Disco music made it popular and a part of pop culture, but SNF was a part of the group of movies in the 70s about the gritty side of NY like Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, Goodbar and even the Warriors. People that lived during that era remember NYC was going through the worst economic crisis ("Ford to City: Drop Dead), unemployment, garbage strikes, Son of Sam, the blackout. Disco and porn saved the city. The TV show The Duece captured this era well also.

Only Tony's mother returns in Staying Alive. And the best scenes in the film are the references to the original. There's a great scene where Tony walks home and passes the Odyssey.

Staying Alive really captures the worst of the '80s. And all the respect Tony learned towards women in the original is thrown away; he treats Cynthia Rhodes like a piece of garbage in the film.

Travolta got really buff for that movie, R229, making it a shame what a lousy movie it was. Even [italic]Perfect[/italic] was less painful to watch because it's not a sequel to a far superior original.

Love that movie. The soundtrack. When I was a kid I played that record to death. Brings back good memories of being a kid in the 70s. 🙂

R229, yes. They didn't even say what happened to his brother and sister. I assumed his father died. I would have rather seen the sequel with his friends and family. Although, I could see them painting the friends as losers working a blue collar job with 3 kids to show how Tony is more successful. As I start to get older, I realize that that life isn't as terrible as Hollywood (or the DL) like to make it out to be.

Side note: I'm of a younger generation then the characters in the film, but grew up where some of SNF was filmed. The neighborhood kids similar to Tony, 1st and 2nd generation Italians (and some Jews), grew up to be very successful. Lawyers, business owners, etc... all from hard working, blue collar parents. Most of them stayed very tight through the years. One of the more successful ones is gay, not a surprise to anyone paying attention, and no one cared. They are like family decades later. So, Tony totally disassociating himself from all things Brooklyn didn't ring true.

R232, If you grew up in Bensonhurst, you'd be correct, but if Bay Ridge, you're a bit off. Italian, Irish and Arab - the last starting in the late 70s around the time they filmed.

Amazing that the house is now worth $2M.

R233- Yup, Bensonhurst.

It's funny how different both areas are now. Both areas with a large Asian community and Bensonhurst with a large Russian community. I actually didn't even know until my parents told me that the Chinese Buffet near their home was where the dancing was filmed.

R235- yes, incredibly different. I think the late 90s was when it really started to change. All the Italians started moving to Staten Island ---> NJ---> PA seemed to be the trajectory. We lived near the dance studio and my mom saw them film there. I think she also saw Dog Day Afternoon being filmed in a nearby neighborhood.

^I'm speaking of Bensonhurst. Not sure when Bay Ridge started to change. I think they still have a decent sized Italian area in some pockets.

That's so cool she saw them filming DDA.

The late 80s was when real Italians started leaving Little Italy in Manhattan. All the old Italians were dying off and their children and grandchildren were moving out of the city. These days, you can't find good Italian food in Little Italy.

There's a saying....the parents couldn't wait to get out of Brooklyn, now the kids can't wait to get back into Brooklyn. My uncle moved to Long Island, both his kids moved to Florida for college and stayed there. He followed. Surprise, surprise, both grandkids moved to Brooklyn after college with no plans of ever going back to Florida.

People don't understand that back in the day, celebrities didn't live in Brooklyn. It wasn't trendy to be from Brooklyn like it is now. You were called bridge and tunnel if you lived anywhere outside of Manhattan. Times really have changed. What would Tony think? Ha

R240, anyone who moved is kicking themselves for not keeping their homes alone. It's crazy what you can get now for a place under 2000 sq ft

Agreed, r198. Tony goes to clubs to dance; DANCING is FREEDOM and TRUTH, a PURE thing, to Tony.

That's why: Tony is offended when he and his partner are awarded the trophy out of racism, after which Tony hands it to the couple he knows deserved it; as another noted, he rejects bad dancer Fran D.; he revels in a solo turn (as we, the movie audience, revel in our watching him); Tony sees a means of escaping the B&T life if Stephanie is his dance partner.

Guys envy him, their girls want him, and Tony swaggers---because of his brilliant moves. "Got the wings of heaven on my shoes/ I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose."

Tony Manero is shown as a supremely sensual, not sexual, being, though the movie also makes clear from the opening scene, when, swinging the paint can, he turns to admire a passing female, that: "Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk/ I'm a woman's man, no time to talk." And, of course, the iconic Farah poster.

IOW, not gay, latent or otherwise.

And neither is Bobby with the pregnant girlfriend. Duh. He simply feels trapped, with a big "Dead End" sign in front of his future. So he makes the metaphor literal.

Musical break

Tony had artistic integrity!

R243 I always wondered what the deal was with that girl who gets the “oh wow” line in the middle of Tony’s dance. Seems so out of place. Did she win a contest? Was she the girlfriend of somebody associated with the film?

I think Travolta has one of the strangest careers of any actor working today. He has hit such HIGHS with films like SNF, Grease, Pulp Fiction, etc., but his lows are SOO low: Moment by Moment, Battlefield Earth, The Fanatic. I can't think of another actor who has had so many ups and downs. One has to wonder what the FUCK he's thinking half the time. I have to wonder if he has one more comeback in him yet.

I also find it hard to believe that he's "in on the joke" the same way that someone like Nicolas Cage is when he does these shitty movies.

When Travolta made his comeback in Pulp Fiction, many critics noted that it was so welcome because he was clearly enjoying it and also was having a great time. Even in smaller hits like Look Who's Talking, he shows why he's a star.

Stayin Alive final dance scene.

The thing with Travolta is that when he does have a hit, you know a stinker is coming. He really gets poor advice or picks bad scripts.

For awhile after Pulp Fiction, he did do some films that did well but Battlefield Earth was just so bad that it seemed to undo all the good will he earned between 1994 and 2000.

R250 but that's Travolta. He can have stinkers but can get still that hit, which many other actors can't say. He is a star and has an ability to make a movie better, even at his age.

Serious question, what was his last hit? Hairspray?

Agree I would have loved to have seen Marilu Henner in this! She can dance, would certainly have had good chemistry, and is a lot more attractive and appealing — yet still ordinary enough looking; someone like Lange her beauty would have distracted and it’s true this character was not supposed to be anything special.

But there’s a difference between a character being a zero and having nothing to offer and an actress being a zero and having nothing to offer. A decent attractive actress still should have been cast in that part, and a lot of those emotions and transitions could have been played a whole lot better.

He did "Hairspray" which was a hit because he turned down many ties Gere's role in "Chicago". Anybody with a head would know it was stupid to turn that down.

turned down many TIMES Gere's role in "Chicago".

R254 it’s funny how they were almost always up for the same roles around that time — or one often got a certain role because the other turned it down.

I never bought into the “hotness” of Travolta, however. He could give great performances (as he does here), and he certainly had an appeal, charismatically speaking, but looks...he face has always been so freaking weird. It’s even more apparent when you see Ellen Travolta who’s basically his doppelgänger.

I never bought into the “hotness” of Travolta

It was the combination of black hair and blue eyes. The Grease poster with Dame Olivia Newton-John shows this. His actual face isn't all that, but the various parts are sexy.

From Paris With Love was a fucking great action movie with him and Rhys Meyers but that was 10 years ago. He can play a bad ass well.

I couldn't get past the bald look R258, despite the fact that he is actually bald. It makes me uncomfortable!

R249 I could only watch about 20 seconds of that. It’s too bad “staying alive” was a bad movie, not that I’ve seen it, because the premise is actually pretty great. Tony breaking out of Brooklyn and into the world of the New York stage.

R253 I agree with many of your points, but I still think it had to be an actress who would allow all of the focus to be on Travolta. Karen achieved that perfectly.

Travolta turned down American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman. Gere has his career thanks to Travolta turning scripts down.

Travolta also turned down Days of Heaven. Gere was so out of place in that movie.

R260 agreed. It would only be natural for Tony to segue into being a dancer on Broadway. They couldn’t have topped SNF even if the sequel would’ve been made, say, two years later when disco was still in vogue. The ending of the first one was perfect, with Tony realizing he has to get out and change his life. Without Stallone at the helm, and with some of the other SNF cast members, it might’ve been better, if there HAD to be a sequel. Not every hit film needs one.

No, it would NOT be natural for Tony to segue into being a Broadway dancer! Broadway dancing takes extensive training in several styles, which Tony Manero did not have, and it takes the ability to learn choreography and act, which Tony also did not have. Being the best dancer at your local disco makes you a pathetic amateur, in Broadway terms.

Which was just the first thing wrong with "Stayin' Alive" (first of millions of wrong things). Sure, Tony would fantasize about being a professional dancer, but in the world of "SNF" silly dreams didn't come true, and if Tony went to Manhattan he'd have arrived with the same shitty job skills he left with, and he'd need to find a girl with a steady job and an apartment to survive there. So the stupid "Stayin' Alive" ass-raped the realistic spirit of "SNF", by making a totally unrealistic fantasy come true the cornerstone of the plot.

Karen Gorney messed up her big scene, Tony busting her for having a sugar daddy. She had an opportunity to make it touching and memorable, instead it was an acting debacle.

Now that you mentioned it, R265, a better sequel could’ve been made out of Tony trying to cope with the death of disco by trying to extrapolate his skills onto the next big thing and failing. That would’ve felt a lot less like a cash grab.

Supposedly Travolta also turned down "American Gigolo", another role that Richard Gere ended up playing He also supposedly turned down "Splash", a big hit for Tom Hanks. He's made some really strange decisions when it comes to his career. But then Travolta has always had something wrong with him. Rona Barrett called him "a strange duck."

Travolta has an expensive lifestyle (owns & flies airplanes). Maybe he works when he needs the money, simple as that. (Doesn't care that much about creating "art," cares about paying his bills.)

R265 yes he would. Without Tony pursuing something in the dancing realm, in which he had a natural gift for and a passion, the sequel would’ve been taking a crucial element of his character away. I don’t think there should’ve been a sequel TBH, the first ended perfectly. He did try to do other things, in the way of acting jobs at the beginning of SA, but was turned down. Plus he had six years in between to hone his craft. A good writing and director could’ve turned it into something like an All That Jazz type film but Stallone turned it into another Rocky.

I haven't seen this movie since it came out. Yeesh. It's horrible all around! Excellent music though.

R267 A sequel set in the mid-80s with Tony teaching aerobics.

In action.

The truth is Tony probably wouldn't have made it as a dancer and been just like every out of work performer. R265 makes some good points, he wasn't classically trained and didn't really act. He would have been better suited as a back-up dancer for a singer or a choreographer. Travolta also looked 30s in that clip, even though this was supposed to be around 6 years later? If they wanted to continue in a more realistic way, it would have been Tony coming to grips with not making it as a dancer and returning to his Brooklyn roots. Maybe even realizing the grass isn't always greener.

R274 how about going back to his Bklyn roots and TEACH dancing? Since those who can’t do teach...

Ugh, I wouldn't have wanted to see him end up back in Brooklyn. I would want *something* of a Cinderfella story. But it could have been a realistic story of trying to make it in Manhattan and in showbiz, maybe with a lucky break. The whole idea being Tony does something with this gift of his, like his brudda da Fadda said.

That's it, I'm going to have to break down and watch Stayin' Alive....

How about he becomes a backup dancer for a cold, ambitious diva of a pop star who bursts on the scene in the early 80s? She, too, can be an Italian-American from a hardscrabble-ish background, perhaps Detroit?

Tony struggles for years in NYC, then finally gets his big break in California playing a guido on a stupid TV sitcom set in Brooklyn or Queens. There's some meta-irony for you.

You guys made me watch this film!!! I had only watched it once 7-8 years ago- (I am 42)

It really is a great film. Very gritty and very watchable. It has that Karate Kid vibe or something.

The dancing is almost a background thing. Its a very gritty, slice of life character study (kind of)....

Never got bored. Solid film.

Karen Lynn Gorney- I am sorry, I thought she really worked in this role- It was all about the chemistry- and it really worked for me.

I love the Marilu Henner ideas though!

8/10. Probably one of the best films I have watched in years. (I barely remembered it from last time!)

Travolta's character moves upstate to the Catskills and teaches ugly Jewish girls how to dance.

Tony Manero would have ended up a Chippendale's dancer, realistically. He would have been propositioned by rich men and would have dabbled as a sugar baby of the 1980s and 90s.

Oh dear God. What desperate women would pay to see those heinous dancers^

I actually can see Tony ending up married to an older, wealthy woman. He certainly liked being led around by the nose by Stephanie. They did something of a spin on that with the Finola Hughes character in Staying Alive, albeit in much lamer fashion.

At the end of SNF Tony tells Stephanie he wants to find work in Manhattan. She tells him you need to have some kind of skill to get a job, noting that she knows "how to type." He says he can surely find something because he's "able-bodied." But what kind of job could he get? The only thing he would be qualified for would be unskilled labor. He has no education. And he's not a professional dancer; he's untrained and his only dancing experience is dancing in discos. I don't see him finding work as a dancer in that highly competitive field. Seems to be his prospects are pretty bleak. And I don't count "Stayin' Alive" as a continuation of his story. That movie was just a ludicrous piece of shit. And any dancer who did what he did in that hilariously awful "Satan's Alley" number would never have been hired again.

Tony has retail experience and seems to be pretty good with sales, noting how the customers at the paint store respond to him. He could probably find work at a shop of some kind, or he could be a waiter at a nightclub like Studio 54 if he was wiling to let Steve Rubell blow him. Stephanie would probably let him stay with her until he got on his feet (longer if they end up a couple). He might do fine until he figured out something better. He's only 19 during the action of the film, so he'd have some time to figure it out.

I know female dancers have to start quite early, but what about male dancers? Tony is only 19 and has some dance experience--realistically, could he get training and catch up in time to ever be a professional? A male dancer's career is longer than a woman's.

[quote]Tony has retail experience and seems to be pretty good with sales, noting how the customers at the paint store respond to him.

And over time, he would've grown bitter over never having achieved his dream as a dancer and coming out late in life ashamed to do so with his conservative Catholic family.

He would've come out in middle age and currently be the old, bitter queen manager at Mood Fabrics or a 7-11.

For anyone wondering about Stayin' Alive, you can get a sense of how bad it is just from the opening sequence. It's a lame, blatant rip-off of the opening to All that Jazz, complete with blaring 80s synthesizers. It also features Kurtwood Smith as the Fosse-esque choreographer, but I just kept expecting him to call everyone a butt head and threaten to kick their asses Red Foreman-style.

"He's only 19 during the action of the film, so he'd have some time to figure it out."

He's not very bright, I don't think he would very capable of figuring anything out. At the end of SNF it seemed that the ending implied a certain hopefulness. But I didn't see a happy ending for Tony Manero. I don't think that would have been in the cards for him.

R284, I was thinking about that. Tony wasn't necessarily set on pursuing dancing as a career at the end of SNF. He could've gone in a totally different direction. Back then I don't think you needed a college degree to get a foot in the door even on Wall Street (people in the job market at the time can correct me if I'm wrong). Tony had street smarts, although he was rough around the edges. I could see someone taking a chance on him.

Tony was also good-looking and charming--that, coupled with youth and brashness, can take you far in life. Especially back then, when a college degree was not required for a lot of professions.

Tony would have become a cab driver.

Good point about college r291. In the 70s there were professions that you could start out in and work your way up without college. Impossible today, but back then you could still do it.

"Tony was also good-looking and charming."

"Good looking?" He really wasn't all that. Passably attractive, but nothing special. And "charming?" He was a dumb Brooklyn lout. And I don't see dumb Tony going into any real "profession." He was very limited intellectually. He would not have "gone far."

R288 That wasn’t too bad. Now I really want to see it.

r281. Good god every bad hairstyle possible on display, what the fuck was going on in the 80s?

Okay, go be a Broadway dancer, a young man needs to study jazz dance for years and had damn well better know some ballet and tap and singing and acting as well, he has to learn all the standard dance moves and vocabulary, he needs much more strength and flexibility than a disco dancer, he needs to learn how to do non-disco moves like huge leaps and pirouettes,and he needs to learn how to memorize choreography instead of improvising the way a Disco dancer does. Learning the bare minimum takes years of dance classes, and dance classes arent free. Tony wouldnt have been able to pay rent in Manhattan unless he got lucky, how was he going to get the time and money to seriously study real dance?

No, anyone who thinks yje Tony we saw in SNF could dance on Broadway knows shit nothing about dance! He might have been able to earn a living as a disco instructor for a few years, but yeah. Aerobics instructor.

In the late 70s a guy like Tony could become a runner on wall street and if he were somewhat smart (not necessarily well educated) work his way up to work on the floor of the exchange. He could have taken the test to be a cop/fireman/sanitation worker - he could have gotten into one of the unionized trades if he had a connection (seems like Tony didn’t). He could work sales, bartend or wait tables, teach ballroom dance to other non-professional dancer, etc, etc. Broadway was not in the cards, but, back then if you really wanted to live in Manhattan you still could on a regular parsons salary - as long as you were fine with a modest one bedroom apt versus a small outer boro house.

R297 you’re analyzing this waaaay too much. Many things were wrong with Staying Alive, but Tony continuing his dancing wasn’t. Who wanted to see him work Wall Street or a dead end job in it?

R298 he bartended and taught a dance class in the sequel while waiting for his big break.

R299 - I never saw the sequel, and I wasn’t trying to come up with a cinematically satisfying story for Tony - just pointing out that 40 years ago it was possible for an uneducated guy to still support himself; and living in Manhattan, while always more expensive, was not astronomically so. Today a guy like Tony really is fucked in NYC — but a generation ago he could have pulled it off on a modest scale.

That may be true, R300, but the life that [italic]Staying Alive[/italic] gives him still doesn't ring true, and the script is the main reason why. And that Broadway show he was in looks even worse than the one from [italic]The Fan[/italic]. Even that was a better movie, at least by default.

Thats a different discussion R301 - and you are completely correct. Tony ending up on Broadway is very unrealistic, but most movie plots are very unrealistic -- give that, the film could have been much better and and more plausible -- but, Stallone.

I blame Michael Eisner. All the Paramount sequels released under his watch were cash grabs, and that same mentality continued when he moved to Disney.

R299, I'm not overthinking anything it's very simple: Tony didnt enter Manhattan with the skills necessary to dance on Btoadway, and he wouldnt have had the time, money, or self-discipline needed to acquire those skills.

He'd have ended up waiting tables or teaching aerobics.

SNF was gritty and real, the cinematography added to that feel. It was more of a character study of Tony's life as a whole, the dancing was secondary. SA was a brightly lit, campy typical 80s movie. It had no connection to the original except for dancing.

In the original Tony was a big fish in a small pond. I said upthread, the most realistic thing they could've done if they wanted to keep dance in was have him not make it in any major way. It was 95% the likely outcome if he did pursue dancing as a profession. I guess Stallone was going for the Rocky theme of the underdog coming out on top. Again, for me SNF was about so much more than just dancing. So there were many ways they could have gone to make it a deeper, more complex story of Tony's journey. The best part of that film was the scene with his mother. It had depth, which was absent elsewhere. I would have loved to have known what happened to Stephanie and to a lesser extent his brother. That was a huge missed opportunity.

The title of this thread made me think of Barry Miller. I didn't read all the comments so don't flame me if it's been discussed but WHET to him? I just googled and see nothing for about 20 years. I used to see him walking in NYC all the time back in the 80's. Tiny little thing less than 100 lbs.

They thought just taking the disco out of it would be enough.

R304 he was waiting tables at the beginning of SA. Before his Broadway break. Have you seen the film? Of course Stallone took dramatic license. But the audience would’ve felt cheated not to see Tony dance, even if it’s in a cheesy musical. How do we know what Tony was doing to improve his dancing in the six years in between. SA has its faults. But they got a few things right. It’s a movie. Not real life.

R306 he won a Tony in the mid 80s. Memorable in Fame and SNF, so he made his mark.

Honestly, Pulp Fiction would have been a more believable sequel to Saturday Night Fever. Angry young Tony moved to Manhattan, got involved with organized crime, and 15 years later he's in LA under an assumed name working for a local crime boss as a minion/hit man.

Tony/Vincent kills people for a living and shoots heroin for fun, but he still loves to boogie!

[quote] Honestly, Pulp Fiction would have been a more believable sequel to Saturday Night Fever. Angry young Tony moved to Manhattan, got involved with organized crime, and 15 years later he's in LA under an assumed name working for a local crime boss as a minion/hit man.

That's no less absurd than the [italic]Grease[/italic] fan theory that suggests Sandy drowned on the beach, the rest of the film is the last thing in her mind's eye before she dies, and the end of the film is her ascent into Heaven.

R308, you are not getting it. As pointed out already by several posters, the Broadway thing was ludicrous. Yeah he might have improved, but it takes more than dance talent to make it on Broadway. He also looked 30s in the film. Way too old to first be breaking in. As I mentioned, for me, SNF was more than just the dancing. They could've incorporated dancing in the sequel, but not the way they did. The entire premise should have been scrapped and redone.

FYI, we all know it's a movie. Doesn't change the fact that it was a stupid plot.

There are two types of bad John Travolta movies: the fun kind and the painful kind. [italic]Perfect[/italic] is the former. [italic]Staying Alive[/italic] is the latter.

R309 and Peggy Sue Got Married

If it was that easy to become a Broadway dancer, my Mom would have more Tonys than Audra McDonald and Angela Lansbury combined!

R313 um I get it perfectly. If there had to be a sequel (which I think was unnecessary like I’ve said up thread) the Broadway angle would be the next logical step. How else would you incorporate dancing into SA? Even a brilliant film like All That Jazz didn’t focus on the struggle of some of the dancers to break into it. SA doesn’t come close, but it did touch on him auditioning, waiting tables and teaching a dance class.

They should have cast me and called it [italic]Saturday Night Beaver[/italic].

Who the hell is the weirdo defending "Starin' Alive", and its ridiculous plot?

Yes, there would have to be dancing in n any sequel to "SNF", but it didnt hace to be professional dancing at a level Tony never could have achieved. A sequel could have shown him as a disco instructor who has to deal with the death of Disco, and hsving to find a new direction in life. Or as an aerobics instructor who dances at "Studio 55", and gets involved with the toxic culture there. Or as a hit man who tries to mollify his conscience by dancing his ass off, whatever. Or he moves to Texas and learns how to dance country-style, while still working a shit job and being poor. Anything except Broadway would have been more believable, even appearing in disco videos.

Of course Tony as a hitman is absurd, R312. But in the grand scheme of things it's LESS absurd than untrained guido Tony becoming a Broadway STAH.

Actually, if Tony could have found a sugar mama to support him in his early years in Manhattan while he got himself decently trained, he might have gotten a lucky break or two. A straight male dancer in NYC in the early/mid 80s would have found himself at a distinct advantage as the AIDS crisis thinned the competition considerably. Morbid but true.

Loved the movie, Loved the soundtrack.

This was my era.

Travolta is a great actor, very handsome, very versatile. Saturday Night Fever did not define him. The variety of movies he's started in are so diverse, and he's shined in all of them.

I do find Travolta's career fascinating. He's done mainstream hits like this, Carrie, Pulp Fiction, Look Who's Talking, Hairspray, and Grease and a few artier movies like Blow Out and then he's done absolute shit like Battlefield Earth and Moment By Moment. How can someone pick something like that when he's proven to have great taste in material before? He must really owe Scientology a lot of money.

[italic]Wild Hogs[/italic] was terrible, but somehow it grossed a fortune. I saw it twice and laughed once.

Travolta was fantastic in Blow Out. I think it's his best performance. it inspired Tarantino to cast him in Pulp Fiction.

Sad that he went onto make Staying Alive, Two of a Kind and Perfect.

R319 like your ideas are any better. 100 times worse in fact. Any audience that investing money in seeing SA wanted to see Travolta dance. It was apart of his appeal, and why he was HUGE in SNF, Grease and Urban Cowboy. His dancing. Not just his looks and charisma. Fred Astaire and a lot of old Hollywood were crazy about him in his heyday.

It was part ^^^

Geez, didn't A Chorus Line teach you anything. Tony doing any Broadway musical is ridiculous. By the 1970s, a dancer had to be able to sing and act. There were no more dancing chorus and singing chorus. All dancers had to at least sing. Where was any evidence that Tony had a Broadway style singing voice?

"The variety of movies he's started in are so diverse, and he's shined in all of them."

Yeah, he really "shined" in "Moment by Moment", and "Stayin' Alive" and "Two of a Kind" and "Perfect" and "Battlefield Earth" and "Gotti", among others. He shined like a beacon in all of them. You moron.

[quote]Where was any evidence that Tony had a Broadway style singing voice?

This is as good as any other.

R329 I don’t even remember any singing in the Devils Alley number in SA. And not every dancer on Broadway sings ok. The movie was flawed and had no edge. But anything other than Broadway would’ve been a backwards step. The audience wanted to see him parlay his dancing into a career. It was the only progression that made sense. We already saw Tony as a loser in SNF, who wanted to see a retread of this. The movie probably would’ve been better I guess if we saw more of his struggle to get there and ending with him making it there at the end as the goal. Instead of the love triangle bs. Like Billy Elliott.

In all fairness to Travolta and any other actor, often they are just pitched a story and sign a contract without seeing an actual, finished script. His agent may have said, "Hey, I got a movie that is starring Lily Tomlin. Sound good?" Lily was a well known comedienne and maybe Travolta just said, "Sure." Maybe he thought it would be a comedy when he signed. And Lily had top billing in that movie, so maybe he thought it would improve his movie profile. He was a sitcom star who had a featured role in Carrie and did the "very special episode" Boy In A Plastic Bubble. SNF had just been released and he was filming Grease, so he couldn't predict that either would shoot him to stardom. Signing on with Lily Tomlin may have looked like a smart move at that point in his career.

"Lily was a well known comedienne and maybe Travolta just said, "Sure."

Actually what I heard was that when Tomlin and Travolta met they immediately clicked and became enamored of each other (not sexually, of course). Each thought the other was wonderful and wouldn't it be wonderful if they did a movie together. They were both obviously delusional. I guess they felt a connection because both of them were gay. But their liking for each other sure as hell didn't translate into any screen chemistry and made for a very awkward, atrociously bad movie.

How did [italic]Moment by Moment[/italic] turn out so awful when Lily's wife wrote and directed it? That's probably why Universal turned [italic]The Incredible Shrinking Woman[/italic] into a children's fantasy with a moral instead of an adult-centric satire about the toxic effects of mindless consumerism. Yet the latter is still the better of the two films and Lily seemed less awkward as Charles Grodin's wife than as a woman married to a man while having an affair with another man.

Moment By Moment was nothing more than a tv Movie of the Week. It had no business being released as a major motion picture.

[quote]Moment By Moment was nothing more than a tv Movie of the Week. It had no business being released as a major motion picture.

The only reason they released in to theaters is because it was shot in Panavision. I couldn't even make it through more than a half hour when Universal HD showed it.

The official Karen Gorney page. Interesting, shows her resume.

Nobody mentions it anymore, but I think Travolta was also good in Primary Colors. He was robbed of an Oscar nomination. It was the year all the awards were being given to foreign projects (Life Is Beautiful, Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth). He should have at least been nominated.

Primary Colors clip.

R329, if ACL suggested anything about Broadway dancing, it was that most of it is done by waving your arms and the director chooses less on talent than on his own personal prejudices, just like anything else.

R340: He got fat for that movie and it took him 20 years to lose the weight.

Tonight I watched “The Fanatic.” Very odd, campy I guess? But I watched it till the end, didn’t turn it off or anything. I just like watching Travolta.

Travolta has always had a star's warmth and charisma onscreen, but he's a seriously weird dude. Maybe the two things are related, or maybe it's being a closeted cult member for 40 years.

R319, I'm beginning to think that poster is trolling. No matter how many times it's repeated that they could keep dancing in, just in another way, they ignore it and keep blathering on about Broadway. They want a Disney movie. SNF was never about rainbows and cotton candy. There was also more to SNF than just the dancing. Tony would not have made it to Broadway. His ending wasn't necessarily going to be a triumphant one.

The Flashdance premise would have been more plausible.

"Travolta was fantastic in Blow Out. I think it's his best performance." He is great in that movie, r325!

I really liked him in "The General's Daughter," too.

Staying Alive was made in the "greed is good" Reagan 80s, not the down-and-dirty 70s, and it was also the sequel to a big hit. It was never going to be a gritty realistic anything. Personally I think the project was doomed from the start, just like John & Olivia's reunion in Two of a Kind. The disco 70s seemed like a tacky joke in 1983. It wasn't until the 90s that people started to appreciate the 70s again.

R345 I’m not trolling. Of course there’s more to SNF than the dancing. Fans of the film and the characters in the film wanted to see Tony do something with his dancing. Broadway was the natural extension of this. Anything less would’ve been disappointing. Actually I wanted NO sequel. But an All That Jazz type film would’ve been better than the sequel. I’ve stated this in my many posts. Learn to read. And the Flashdance premise would’ve been ridiculous.

What they don't show in the movie (this was pre-AIDS) is that after his buddy came in the whore's cunt, Travolta ate her out.

I rewatched SNF today. It’s really a terrific movie. Poor Bobby and Annette—they’re such tragic characters.

It's on again and I'm watching. Barry Miller's performance as Bobby C with the pregnant girlfriend is Oscar-worthy. So touching. I forgot how good the movie is.. I moved to that area about twenty years ago. Every business had a picture of themselves with John Travolta. The paint store was in the next block. People still came and took pictures. The disco was still there. Same dance floor and everything. It was like time stood still.