Saturday Night Fever

 

Saturday Night Fever 1977

• Director: John Badham
• Seen by this director: War Games, Bird on a Wire, Nick of Time
• Based on the novel: no
• Cast: John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Donna Pescow, Martin Shakar
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e., have seen this actor in:
• John Travolta – Hairspray, Be Cool, A Love Song for Bobby Long, The Thin Red Line, Race/Off, Get Shorty, Pulp Fiction, Urban Cowboy, Grease
• Why? It’s a classic now.
• Seen: Once before. Now 26 March 2021.      

       Hal just pointed out that’s it’s Friday. Are we allowed to watch it anyway?

       The intro is worth lots of stars all by itself. Tony (Travolta) is a mouthy nineteen-year-old Catholic Italian working-class New Yorker who lives to dress sharp and dance.

       What more do you need to know?

       There’s more to this film than flashy disco music. Underneath, and not far underneath, all the glitter and glamour is the bleakness of a class-bound misogynist and racist society where Tony and his friends have no money and no future. They know it but dancing and fighting help them forget.

       Travolta was born to play this role and who would ever have thought that the Bee Gees would end up being the super-kings of disco while listening to ‘To Love Somebody’, ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941’ or ‘I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You’ in the 60s?      

4 * of 5