Saturday Night Fever


Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local disco while dealing with social tensions and disillusionment in his working class ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is based on "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", a mostly fictional 1976 New York article by music writer Nik Cohn.
A major critical and commercial success, Saturday Night Fever had a tremendous impact on the popular culture of the late 1970s. It helped popularize disco around the world and initiated a series of collaborations between film studios and record labels. It made Travolta, already well known from his role in the popular TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, a household name. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, at the time becoming the fourth-youngest nominee in the category. The film showcases aspects of the music, dancing, and subculture surrounding the disco era, including symphony-orchestrated melodies, haute couture styles of clothing, pre-AIDS sexual promiscuity and graceful choreography. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring songs by the Bee Gees, is one of the best-selling soundtrack albums worldwide. Travolta reprised his role of Tony Manero in Staying Alive in 1983, which was panned by critics despite being successful at the box office.
In 2010, Saturday Night Fever was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Adjusted for inflation, it is one of the highest-grossing R-rated films released in the U.S. in the 1970s, with a total box office gross of $673,899,098 in 2024.

Plot

Tony Manero is an Italian-American from the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, living in his family's house and working in a hardware store. He escapes his day-to-day life by dancing at 2001 Odyssey, a local discotheque, where he receives the admiration he craves as king of the dance floor.
Tony and his friends Joey, Double J, Gus, and Bobby C spend their nights at the disco, trying to have sex with women in Bobby's car, and climbing on the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge. Neighborhood girl Annette is infatuated with Tony, much to his annoyance, and he agrees to be her partner in an upcoming dance contest. Annette's happiness is short-lived when Tony is mesmerized by a better dancer, Stephanie Mangano, who rejects Tony's advances but eventually agrees to be his new partner in the competition.
Tony is pleased to no longer be the black sheep of the family when his older brother Frank Jr, the pride of their parents and grandmother, quits the Catholic priesthood. Frank Jr admits that he only became a priest to make their parents happy, and later advises Bobby, who is under pressure to marry his pregnant girlfriend, that the Pope is unlikely to grant him dispensation for an abortion. Leaving to start a new life, Frank encourages Tony to do what makes him happy.
Gus is beaten up and hospitalized, telling his friends that his attackers were the Barracudas, a Puerto Rican gang. Annette grows more and more desperate for Tony's attention, as does Bobby, who tries to ask him for guidance. Tony helps Stephanie move to Manhattan, and comforts her after discovering her past relationship with an older married colleague. Tony and his friends take revenge on the Barracudas, crashing Bobby's car into their hangout and starting a brawl, but are angry to learn that Gus may have identified the wrong gang.
After much practice, Tony and Stephanie dance at the competition, sharing a kiss at the end of their performance. They win first prize, but Tony believes that a Puerto Rican couple performed better and the judges' decision was racially biased, and he gives the couple his trophy and award money. Outside in Bobby's car, Tony tries to force himself on Stephanie, who declares that she was only using him to win, before fighting him off and running away.
Tony's friends arrive with Annette, who, under the influence of drugs, agrees to have sex with everyone. Tony tries to lead her away but is subdued by Double J and Joey, and they all drive to the bridge. Joey rapes Annette in the back seat followed by Double J, while Tony and Bobby appear uncomfortable. They arrive to a point on the bridge and climb out. The others begin their usual cable-climbing antics on the bridge, an erratic Bobby behaves even more recklessly than his friends, and Tony tries to talk him down, but Bobby's strong sense of despair and Tony's broken promise to call him earlier all lead to a suicidal tirade, before Bobby falls to his death. After the police arrive, a disgusted and disillusioned Tony leaves Double J, Joey, and Annette behind, riding the graffiti-riddled subway into Manhattan. By morning, he appears at Stephanie's apartment and apologizes for his behavior, planning to relocate to Manhattan to start a new life. Stephanie forgives Tony, admitting that she danced with him because he gave her respect and moral support, and they salvage their relationship, agreeing to be friends.

Cast

Development

The film was inspired by a 1976 New York magazine article entitled "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" by British writer Nik Cohn. The article centers on working class Italian-Americans in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and on the lives of young men who work dead-end jobs but live for their nights dancing at the local discotheque. Cohn later wrote that "the craze had started in black gay clubs, then progressed to straight blacks and gay whites and from there to mass consumption—Latinos in the Bronx, West Indians on Staten Island, and, yes, Italians in Brooklyn." Shortly after Cohn's article was published, British music impresario Robert Stigwood purchased the film rights and hired Cohn to adapt his own article to screen.
In the mid-1990s Cohn acknowledged that although his account was presented as factual reporting, he fabricated most of the article. He said that as a newcomer to the United States and a stranger to the disco lifestyle, he was unable to make any sense of the subculture he had been assigned to write about; instead, the article's protagonist was based on an acquaintance of Cohn who was an English mod.
John G. Avildsen was originally hired as the film's director but was replaced one month before principal photography by John Badham over "conceptual disagreements." Badham was a lesser-known director who, like his star, had mostly worked in television. His sole prior film credit, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, was released while Saturday Night Fever was already well into production. John's younger sister is Mary Badham who played Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.
The film went through several different titles, including Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night and Saturday Night. After the Bee Gees wrote "Night Fever" and submitted it for the soundtrack, they told Stigwood they disliked the title Saturday Night. It was after this that the film's final title of Saturday Night Fever was decided upon.

Writing

After Cohn finished a single screenplay draft, he was replaced by Norman Wexler, a screenwriter with Oscar nominations for Joe and Serpico. Among the elements Wexler added to the story was Tony's younger sister, as well as older brother Frank who disappoints his parents by leaving the priesthood. "I think what Norman did so well was to create a family situation that had real truth, an accurate look at how men related to women in that moment, in ways that you would never get away with now," said producer Kevin McCormick.

Casting

The film's relatively low budget meant that most of the actors were relative unknowns, many of whom were recruited from New York's theatre scene. For more than 40% of the actors it was their film debut. The only actor in the cast who was already an established name was John Travolta, thanks to his role on the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. Travolta, who had previously auditioned for Stigwood's film version of Jesus Christ Superstar, was remembered by the producer and signed to a three-movie contract with his company in 1976. Stigwood wanted Travolta to first star in a movie version of Grease, but because a film adaptation of Grease was not permitted to begin filming until 1978 when its stage run had completed, they made this film first. Travolta's performance as Tony Manero brought him critical acclaim and helped launch him into international stardom.
Travolta researched the part by visiting the real 2001 Odyssey discotheque, and claimed he adopted many of the character's swaggering mannerisms from the male patrons. Travolta said when he would get recognized, " girlfriends would come up, and they'd say, 'Hey, stay away from him, don't bug Travolta,' and they’d actually push the girls away. Tony Manero's whole male-chauvinist thing I got from watching those guys in the discos." He insisted on performing his character's own dance sequences after producers suggested he be substituted by a body double, rehearsing his choreography with Lester Wilson and Deney Terrio for three hours every day, losing in the process. Wilson is credited for providing the look of the dance scenes and "breathing life" into the film. Said Travolta, "He taught me what he called his 'hang time.' He would smoke a cigarette to greet the day, and he infused my dancing with African-American rhythm. I'm the kind of dancer who needs thought and construction—an idea—before I dance. I need an internal story. Lester would put on some music and he would say, 'Move with me, motherfucker—move with me!
Karen Lynn Gorney was nine years older than Travolta when she was cast as his love interest Stephanie. Although Gorney had dance experience before she was cast, she found it difficult to keep up with her co-star due to injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident some years before. After the success of Saturday Night Fever, Gorney took a break from film acting to work as a dance instructor at a performing arts academy in Brooklyn. Jessica Lange, Kathleen Quinlan, Carrie Fisher, and Amy Irving were all considered for the part before Gorney was cast.
Donna Pescow was considered almost "too pretty" by Paramount heads Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg for the role of Annette. She corrected this matter by putting on weight. She also had to relearn her native Brooklyn accent, which she had overcome while studying drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.