Saturday Night Fever

Saturday Night Fever
Directed by	Stanley Kubrick
Produced by	Robert Satinwood
Written by	Stanley Kubrick
Starring	John Travolta; Frank Zappa; Barry Miller; Olivia Newton-John
Music by	Barry Gibb; Robin Gibb; Maurice Gibb
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	December 16, 1977
Running time	118 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$3.5 million
Box office	$35,000

Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American song-and-dance film and a direct sequel to the 1960s Korean War movie Friday Night Fever. Both films were written and directed by Stanley Kubrick against his will and produced by Robert Stigwood. Although its prequel was a huge success worldwide, Saturday Night Fever struggled to gain popularity and has since been classified as a flop, having only made $35,000 back from its $3.5m budget. It is thought that a key reason to its underachievement at the box office, and the subsequent public hatred of the film, is down to its appallingly tacky soundtrack and tight bulge-revealing polyester costumes.

Plot[edit]

As a continuation of the story from Friday Night Fever, Korean War veteran Anthony "Tony" Manero (John Travolta) returns home from abroad to Brooklyn, New York, only to find that America has changed beyond recognition. As he steps off the boat, he is greeted by his parents Frank (Val Bisoglio) and Flo (Julie Bovasso), who are both now dressed as transgender punks emulating the style of the New York Dolls. Disgusted with what American society has become, Tony begins drinking heavily until by chance he meets his old friend Bobby "Grenade" Trammps (Frank Zappa) inebriated on a park bench. Over a bottle of cider they rekindle their friendship.

Soon after, Bobby introduces Tony to the burgeoning disco scene and offers to become his teacher and dancing partner to help Tony settle in. Reluctantly but wisely, Tony agrees. Before long it becomes apparent that Tony has a talent for dancing, showing his groovy moves on the dance floor of Do Me a Solid, the most popular disco club in New York. Having discovered his new talent, Tony enters disco competitions to fund his alcoholic lifestyle, and owns the dance floor wherever he goes. As he gradually adapts to his new surroundings, Tony begins to relish the trends of the time, wearing ever-more elaborate and ridiculous clothing in the name of fashion.

Ultimately, Tony assembles a Gang of Four friends: Bobby, Joey "Fatneck" Chitlins (Joseph V. Cali), Johnny B. Bad (Paul Pope), and Gus "Swindles" Frampton (Bob Hoskins). A fringe member of this friend circle is Vanda "Yoyo" Drawers (Helen Mirren), a neighborhood girl who longs for something a bit more sensual with Tony. Tony and his friends ritually stop on the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge to clown around and climb cables. The bridge has special significance for Tony as a symbol of escape to a better life on the other side, that "other side" not being Heaven, but rather Staten Island. Tony agrees to be Vanda's partner in an upcoming dance contest, but her happiness is short-lived when Tony is mesmerized by another woman at the club, Maureen "Mashbag" Winters (Olivia Neutron-Bomb), whose dancing skills far outstrip Vanda's. Although Mashbag rejects Tony's advances, she eventually agrees to be his partner in the dance competition, provided that their partnership remains strictly professional.

Tony's older brother, Frank "Peckerwood" Manero Jr. (Daniel Rabies), who was the pride of the family since he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest, brings great shame to their parents and grandmother when he tells them he quit the priesthood, not because of an abuse scandal as predicted, but because he just got sick of it. Tony has a decent friendship with Peckerwood, but secretly feels smug that he, Tony, is no longer the black sheep of the family. Peckerwood tells Tony that he never wanted to be a priest and only did it to make their parents happy, and encourages Tony that he should keep dancing. Meanwhile, Bobby has been trying to get out of his relationship with his devout Catholic girlfriend, Pauline (Pauline Kael), who is pregnant with his child. Facing pressure from his family and others to marry her, Bobby asks Peckerwood if the Pope would grant him dispensation for an abortion. When Peckerwood tells him "Hell no", Bobby's feelings of desperation increase.

While on his way home from the grocery store, Swindles is attacked by a gang and hospitalized, telling Tony and his friends that his attackers were the Blue Barracudas. Eventually, the group gets their revenge on the Barracudas, and crash Bobby's car into their hidden temple hangout. Tony, Johnny, and Fatneck get out of the car to put up a fight, but Bobby cowardly takes off when a gang member tries to attack him in the car. When the group visits Swindles in the hospital, they are pissed when he confesses that he may have swindled them and sent them after the wrong gang. Later, Tony and Maureen dance at the competition and end up winning first prize, but Tony's white guilt sneaks up on him and he gives his trophy and reward money to a Puerto Rican couple. Once outside in the car, Tony tries to force himself on Mashbag, thinking she'll allow it since he's such a generous man, but alas, she resists and runs away from him.

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Tony's friends come to the car along with a date-drugged Vanda, and Fatneck claims she agreed to have sex with everyone. Tony hypocritically tries to lead her away even though he himself already tried to rape a woman shortly before, but is subdued by Johnny and Fatneck, and sullenly leaves with the group in the car. Johnny and Fatneck date-rape an intoxicated Vanda, and Bobby pulls the car over on the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge for their usual cable-climbing antics. Instead of abstaining as usual, Bobby performs stupid stunts more recklessly than the rest of the gang, as though he were on a Jackass episode. Realizing that he is acting recklessly, Tony acts like a concerned mother and tries to get Bobby to come down. Suddenly, Bobby is overcome with a strong sense of despair over how there's no way out of his tangle with Pauline and their baby, and how Tony broke his promise to call Bobby earlier that day. Bobby then gives a tirade about how Tony just doesn't care and how life is so hard, but accidentally trips on his shoelaces and plummets to his splashy death in the water below.

Disgusted and disillusioned by his friends, his family, his life, himself, and yet again, American society, Tony rides the subway into Manhattan and meets Maureen at her apartment. He apologizes for trying to rape her, and she oddly accepts his apology without a second thought. In the climatic end scene, Tony and Mashbag go out for a night on the town, and Tony is startled when Mashbag enters the dance floor bollock-naked with her knickers on her head. Her grotesque mutt horrifies Tony, who runs screaming from the dance floor and out onto the streets of New York where he is hit by a garbage truck and dies.

Production[edit]

Frank Zappa sharing a joke with Daniel Rabies.

At the time, musician and comedian Frank Zappa was considered a strange choice for the role of Bobby. Stanley Kubrick, having seen Zappa's performance in Weasels Ripped My Flesh: The Motion Picture, reasoned that he'd be ideal for drunken down-and-out WOP Bobby. Zappa's influence on '70s fashion and music also helped give producer Robert Stigwood reason enough to grant Kubrick's request. Controversially, this caused mass upset within the film crew who went on to stage a three-day protest against the decision.

During the filming of the "porridge scene" (now deleted from the DVD version), a Rocky poster can be seen stuck to the fridge in homage to Sylvester Stallone, who initially turned down the role of Tony Manero, allowing John Travolta to nab the part. Over the course of the film there are 496 scenes in which Travolta is eating pizza. Due to this incredible intake of food, Travolta gained 150lbs during filming; as a result, most of the disco club scenes featured a body double. In the new digitally remastered version of Saturday Night Fever, digital effects have been applied to Travolta, significantly thinning his face throughout the film.

By a quirk of fate, Marlon Brando, filming Superman in the studio next door, visited the Saturday Night Fever set and reportedly stole the crew's lunch trolley. He wheeled it out into the car park where he then sat and ate 26 portions of pastrami. In a 1981 interview, Brando was asked if this was true and he replied: "Don't be ridiculous, that's a ridiculous story, nobody believes it. I was next door in another studio doing urhh, Superman...with that prick Donner, and I went over to see Bob Hoskins and I wanted his urhh, autograph, and then I saw this buffet tray on a trolley, so I had a little snack. They say I ate all this pastrami, but urhh, well, it was urhh, chicken I think."

Soundtrack[edit]

The Bee Gees performed many of the songs on the soundtrack which is the main reason it is so offensive.

Widely regarded as the sole purpose the film was a tremendous flop, Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Soundtrack was an international tragedy. Banned in 38 countries worldwide, it was rumored that over 8 million copies of the LP were amassed from around the U.S. by Paramount Pictures themselves and secretly buried in the Nevada desert. Other rumors say that the 8 millions LPs gathered were burned, to the cost of $22,000, at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

"Back from Zipperhead Mountain" performed by Frank Zappa – 24:47
"(Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah) Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive" performed the by Bee Gees – 4:45
"Meat in the Backseat" performed by the Bee Gees – 4:05
"~~Saturday~~ Night Fever" performed by the Bee Gees – 3:33
"More Than a Woman" performed by the Bee Gees – 3:17
"If I Can't Have You" performed by Yvonne Elliman – 3:00
"The Filth of Beethoven" performed by Walter Murphy – 3:03
"More Than a Woman, Pt. 2" performed by ~~the Bee Gees~~ Tavares – 3:17
"Mashbag's Mutt" performed by David Shire – 4:44
"Bobby's Breakdown" performed by Ralph MacDonald – 7:50
"Disco Bollocks" performed by David Shire – 5:12
"Open Sesame" performed by Kool & the Gang – 4:01
"Weasel Neck" performed by the Bee Gees – 3:43
"You Should Be Dancing" performed by the Bee Gees – 4:14
"(I Want to Put On) My My My My My Boogie Shoes" performed by KC and the Sunshine Band – 2:17
"Salivation" performed by David Shire – 3:50
"MmmKay-Gee" performed by MFSB – 4:13
"Burn Baby Burn" performed by The Trammps – 10:51

Reception[edit]

Saturday Night Fever was poorly received by critics and at the box office. Although the cinematography, direction, and production are considered to be on par for a low-budget pile of '70s drivel, both the acting and soundtrack are considered uniquely dreadful. Mark Kermode, famous film critic and '50s time capsule, said: "The film looks okay, well, for a low-budget '70s flick, but as soon as the music kicks you know you're up cheese creek. All you do is try to stay sane as the merry-go-round of musical torture continues...and just as you think you can cope with the awful racket the actors begin ‘acting’ and make a complete bollocks of it all. Fucking awful."

Some critics were less harsh with their review. Slack-jawed sphere of misery Roger Ebert said, "It's not too bad but don't believe the hype. The film is okay, and I like dancing as much as any other straight man, but that scene of Mashbag's mutt at the end turned my stomach completely, didn't see that coming. Wish I never saw it, but hey-ho."

Home media[edit]

VHS[edit]

Screenshot comparison of the digital restoration in three stages.

Various restored versions of Saturday Night Fever have been released since its original theatrical version in the '70s. The first of these was the 1991 VHS "Director's Cut" restoration which cut around 12 minutes from the original film. This version was poorly received, with critics citing color imbalances and motion blur as the two main offenders, as well as the many edits made to the film. Below are some of the most well recognized of said edits:

Scene 12. Swindles finds Tony locked outside his own front door – This scene was cut from 10 minutes and 24 seconds to 2 minutes and 53 seconds. Swindles drinking tea from a vase was cut, and the shot of Tony manically scratching his arse was shortened.
Scene 45. Tony eats pizza – This scene was shortened from 56 seconds to 35 seconds. The viewer only sees Tony eat one slice, as opposed to the full scene whereby he uncontrollably devours the entire pie.
Scene 186. Johnny and Fatneck rape Vanda – This scene was shortened from 17 minutes and 44 seconds to 12 minutes and 31 seconds. The anal fisting scene was cut in its entirety.
Scene 264. Mashbag reveals her mutt to Tony for the first time – This scene was shortened from 43 seconds to 12 seconds and features only one close-up of the mutt.

DVD[edit]

With the advent of DVD the next restoration came in 2002. Digital technology had improved dramatically since 1991, allowing Paramount to fix the color balances criticized in the previous release, and making the film appear warmer and brighter. This time, they only made a few subtle edits, changing the running time from 118 minutes to 115 minutes (cutting the controversial "porridge scene" in particular). This version was well received by critics and is the best-selling version of the film to date.

Blu-ray[edit]

The film's 2009 Blu-ray release was a disaster. With sales of less than 500 copies worldwide (over a 24-month period) it rendered the newly-restored version a complete flop. This in part is thought to be due to harsh criticism from the press. Despite the image being sharper and warmer than previous versions, critics claimed that "the digital restoration of John Travolta's face, in an attempt to slim him, is excessive and detracts from the film's plot." Fans of the film were even less positive in their reviews, and have sent hate mail and death threats to the production house.

Unusually, Travolta weighed in and addressed the fans' concerns himself. In 2010, he tweeted: "I look weird in the new version. I was eating 7lbs of pizza day for at least 3 months. I was huge. There's no way that even looks like me." Plans to release another newly restored version, reverting Travolta's face to its original slovenly shape, are currently underway.

In popular culture[edit]

Saturday Night Fever has been referenced throughout pop culture since its original release in 1977.

At the height of his career, popular English comedian Bernard Manning performed a live comedy sketch on Bruce Forsyth's The Generation Game in which he parodied Bob Hoskins's "comb-over scene". The scene, where Hoskins stares into a mirror combing his baldy head with a screwdriver, is amongst the funniest in the film. Struggling to get his hair right, he has the piss ripped out of him by a bunch of piccaninnies taunting him from the street corner below. A kaleidoscope of racist abuse soon follows.

Legendary puppet master Jim Henderson, creator of popular children's show Sesame Street, created a Muppet based on Tony Monero that would go on to feature in a special one-off episode. In the episode "Dancing Tony", the eponymous puppet accompanied Travolta on stage to perform some dancing moves. During the performance, Dancing Tony would scream out a series of words from the film which Travolta would then repeat back. Unfortunately the episode was never aired; the over-excited puppeteer controlling Dancing Tony frequently cussed during the dance moves, and was seen to be thrusting Dancing Tony's bulging furry penis towards Travolta. Though the penis was covered, and it was the '70s, it was deemed too inappropriate for children to watch.

Timmy Mallet, weird children's entertainer from the '80s, frequently used the film's catchphrase "Do me a solid" on his hit TV programme Wacaday.

In the popular TV series Game of Thrones, the character Muffblood Wetsnatch frequently refers to his dog as "Fatback Chitlins", referencing the SNF character played by Joseph V. Cali.