I watched Staying Alive which I haven't seen in years

I saw it in the theatre when it was released

It was horrible

Did it make money? I was 13 when it came out, and I remember everyone hating it.

It made something like $60 million back in '83.

Travolta released a sexy work-out book must have been around this time? His body was pretty ripped but didn't look quite right. He posed in little shorts and white striped tube socks and muscle slut shirts and I jerked off to my uncle's copy over and over. John got into some interesting positions and that ASS! Later I would fuck my Uncle and still later he would die of the AIDS. Talk about Stayin Alive.

R4 apparently he trained with Stallone for the movie.

I just read some of the reviews in IMDb and laughed. Studios (or stars, directors, producers) so obviously pay people to review films and tv shows -- even old ones!

You'll read a couple of reviews which actually describe the film/tv show and the other 90% of the reviews are glowing. All with perfect grammar and punctuation.

Staying Alive made $65million to the $22million budget, compared to the Saturday Night Fevers $139million to the $3.5million budget

Hmmph.

Stallone couldn't keep his hands off of Travolta

What seemed bizarre to me was Stallone deciding to do this sequel. The Rocky sequels and Rambo sequels I get, but directing a sequel to Saturday Night Fever? Was he hoping to makes piles of money on it?

Stallone did win the best Picture Oscar as a producer of Rocky so I guess he wanted to show his versatility and direct. He sure worked Travolta hard )) JT looked like he was ready to do the Pajama Game or the 20 minute workout.

The weird kind of self conscious fitness that Jane Fonda would make famous. It was about the bad music and tight clothes and damaging your body. Aspirational and not sexy at all. The movie is hilarious and that soap actress with the headband + 10 extra years on her is the funniest part as the leading lady. Travolta at least looked sexy in a cheap gay way. I can't find his micro shorts and porno socks pics, but here is proof that the book exists.

And yet Travolta didn't follow his own workout advice.

The dance sequences were bizarre and overwrought. It was laughable to think that a audience would pay money to see "Satan's Alley".

[quote]The dance sequences were bizarre and overwrought. It was laughable to think that a audience would pay money to see "Satan's Alley".

Um, sure.

R13 I was wondering if people actually put on shows like this. Satan's Alley just seemed to be music and dance no songs or dialogue.

Travolta hasn't any workout advice to give. He just was young enough to do what he was told. His Staying Alive body doesn't suit him, you can tell it was achieved fast and without food. Travolta was a sexy ass Italian man with a bit of thickness, narrow hips and full lips and nice thighs and a small high round ass. Not an athlete or dancer body. He was destined to be fatter with age. He was sexy in SNF, because he was showing what most young Italian men have to offer. Crude irresistible ripe features and confidence.

I did three nights of extra work on that film. In CBGB's. Small. Crowded. Warm. A smoke machine. The band on stage and Travolta out in the club. Some dialogue between him and Frank Stallone or the girl with the headband. Maybe both. Who remembers?

Stallone wore cowboy boots with high heels and a cowboy hat with a feather. A walking stereotype of working class nouveau riche. Travolta was still taller. Travolta was young, at the height of his fame, and pumped spectacularly. And those blue eyes. I've never seen him be charismatic on film the way he was in person, from 15 feet away. The smile was dazzling. The ice were magnetic. One could not look away. When Stallone called 'cut,' everyone's eyes drifted back to Travolta. I cannot explain it. He didn't give out those doofus vibes. Not in person. On film? Always a doofus. But in that club, he was hot as hell.

It gave me some insight on how he hit it so very big in such a short amount of time. He must have done interviews and auditions better than anyone. But the camera does not record what I saw for three nights in CBGB. More often, the camera cleans up folks with little class, but good bone structure. But with Travolta, it's the opposite.

When he was young, if had decided to do Broadway, he would have exploded the place. Instead, we got what? Moment by Moment. Feh.

Crude features - I'm stealing that line R16!

Did Stallone go gay for him?

R15- I've noticed that this happens a lot in films. When the film has a plot about putting on a stage show, the parts of the stage show you see ends up looking either lame or ridiculous. They should just take parts of a real stage show/play and rework it. Like take a dance scene from West Side Story or something and pretend it's for the new show.

Sometimes even the fake titles they come up with are lame. In All About Eve, the playwright was working on a play called "Footsteps On The Ceiling". That doesn't even sound like anything a real audience would want to see.

I think no one wants to waste a good title or choreography on a fake show. They save the good stuff for future shows.

r17 he did start on Broadway.

He did Grease (as Doody not Danny)and an Andrews Sisters musical with them and Marilu Henner. (call Marilu I'm sure she remembers it)

All about Eve was satirical within it's realness. Read the titles of fifties and sixties dramatic plays and "Footsteps on the Ceiling" doesn't sound far out of place. Also you can't just put in a number from West Side Story in a film anymore than you can sing a Beatles song on a talent show. On The Voice last week, for the first time a contestant sang an Eagles song. They are infamous for not giving permission for others to perform their songs. So they permitted it, but it still cost about $250,000 for the rights to sing Desperado. Original material is the name of the game for films like Staying Alive and Footloose and Flashdance and that Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing thing. They rely heavily on new soundtrack material and choreography. Sometimes it doesn't suck.

OMG I forgot this mess had Finola Hughes in it before her General Hospital days.

Was he a cokehead? I assume everyone was.

R11 Stallone has never won an Oscar. He didn't produce Rocky. Still this is the best Travolta ever looked in a film. I don't think it deserves its near zero rating on rotten tomatoes ( it may be zero now) . Saturday Night Fever really didn't a sequel. I don't think it's a crash and burn disaster of a film. But it's a strictly by the numbers cash grab of a sequel. Stallone tried to turn Tony Manero into Rocky. Stallone decided to write the Stephanie character out along with Travoltas friends from the first. Big mistake. Finola Hughes is horrible in this but her acting improved on GH. Unnecessary film has the none of the grit and reality of SNF.

Stallone knew all about the results of a high protein carb reduced diet + supplements and training. It is not a new diet or philosophy. I am sure John had a food minder and trainer. It is not so hard to follow this kind of program for 90 days. But it backfires if you stop and Travolta would never be thin or firm again. The leaned out look didn't even suit Travolta IMO.

The headline at r28 is "Sex and the Single Star"

That would be a fun read I bet.

Travolta was built, strong - manly fit and sexy as hell. Staying Alive was not the best he ever looked.

Great post R17, thank you for sharing that. Travolta always did seem much more interesting in interviews than in character.

The best rumor, at the time, was that Travolta and Stallone were having a thing during the shooting of the film. That I can believe.

Lots of things change in just a few years. Even the BeeGees were considered passe to the younger audiences. Travolta and Stallone? Forget it.

Did you now he danced with Ann Reinking in "Over Here" and wanted her to play ChaCha in "Grease". He also wanted her in the Hughes role in "Stayin Alive". Think how much worse it would have been to hear her in the movie, although she would have made a great ChaCha.

r33 Travolta and Stallone? Forget it.

Were you there, or are you just another DL moderator who knows everything about everything. The latter I know.

[quote] Stallone tried to turn Tony Manero into Rocky

He turned him into Rambo in tights

God i love this movie and Cynthia Rhodes was gorgeous

While Stallone does not have an Oscar, he does have a People's Choice Award

Everybody uses everybody. Don't they

Go to hell Manero!

"That would be a fun read, I bet."

Actually, it was a revealing read. That interview with Travolta showed him for what he was: a supremely egotistical, not very bright douchebag. The only detail I remember from that interview was that he claimed to have lost his virginity at age 13. And he definitely made it clear that he finds himself sexy as hell, and he has a lot of sex and that he WAS the seventies.

Readers wrote letters to Rolling Stone expressing their disgust. One said that he or she left the Rolling Stone with the nearly naked, preening Travolta on the cover in a car with the windows down, hoping someone would make off with it. Alas, no one did.

It's one of those rare movies that leave you wondering what the hell kind of awful person the director is.

Like, in "SNF" Tony Manero was this basically nice kid, the one who didn't want to be a bully or a user the way most of his peers were - and Stallone turned him into a bully and a user. Stallone also had Travolta bulk up when dancers are lean, the weight training cost Travolta any flexibility he had.

And fucking "Satan's Alley"? Where the leading man throws the leading lady off the stage and just dances in a frenzy of ego? What the hell kind of narcissistic asshole would think that was what viewers liked!

R41 what's funny is Tony wanted to make it on his own, yet got the chorus line because of Laura. This movie did however give us one of my fave songs from an 80s movie.

A lot of the songs were quite catchy.

[quote] Were you there, or are you just another DL moderator who knows everything about everything.

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Oh, Frank. We will always love your music.

I love this movie (it's so good it's baaad)

& I still listen (and love) this soundtrack.

Thanks R17 for the insight into filming.

Tony Manero: Did you hear the way she talked? All intelligent like.

Jackie: Tony, an accent doesn't make you intelligent. If it did, you'd be Einstein.

_______________ Doorman: Are you expected?

Tony Manero: To do what?

R27

He won best original screenplay for Rocky.

I still love the soundtrack. And the film is a major guilty pleasure.

R46 🤣🤣🤣

SA made $126 million on a $22 million budget r7