Saturday Night Fever

I don't know. I was over in 10003 with the gays, only a few of whom were from Brooklyn.

Brooklyn. Yuck.

I'm remembering the Barefoot Boy, which appeared to be populated mainly by Italian and puertorriqueño queens from Brooklyn. They had a swagger about them that Tony Manero reminded me of when SNF came out in '77.

I went there in the 90s when it was called the Spectrum. I moved to Bay Ridge which is nearby. It looked the same. Mixed crowd. Shopkeepers still had photos of John Travolta posing with them like time stood still. The mob ran everything out there. So the neighborhood was super safe. Muggers realized the little old lady they were about to rob might have a son or husband who was connected.

Donna Pescow stole the show. Annette was all class, baby!

You can get the background on all the old clubs at this site...

It had a timeless soundtrack.

Such a long time ago.

SNF was the beginning of the end of disco, a mixed blessing because the soundtrack was superb, but the straights moved in.

It set the stage for the Steve Dahl event in Chicago.

Travolta was so hot then. Too bad he became a freak, closetcase scientologist.

If I can’t have you is a good song

I wonder how many local men in Bay Ridge had Travolta's ass during the filming of this movie.

I loved how it dissolved into "How Deep Is Your Love?" when Barry Miller's character jumped/fell off the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

[quote]Did guys in south Brooklyn really act like Tony Manero and his goons?

Not so much Brooklyn. By the 1970s, many Italians had moved out of Brooklyn. He was typical of Long Island and New Jersey Italians. Goombas, all of them.

Tacky, racist guidos who wore too much aftershave and cheap gold jewelry. Sounds about right.

I always thought Tony and Bobby C. were fucking, R13, and they just cut it out from the movie, hence the "How deep is your love" bit.

The gang rape scene always made me ill.

As a kid, "If I Can't Have You" was one of the first pop songs that really knocked me out. It just had this magical quality I couldn't define. Still think it's the best song on the soundtrack.

It's no "Prisoner of Second Avenue".

It's no "An Unmarried Woman".

It's no "Next Stop, Greenwich Village."

I thought SNF was based on a true story from a magazine article?

[quote]The mob ran everything out there. So the neighborhood was super safe.

I've heard from older people that back in the days when NYC was a crime-ridden hellhole, the Italian neighborhoods were always safe to life in. "Nobody ever bothered with the Italian neighborhoods, they were afraid to. You never saw any blacks or Puerto Ricans in their neighborhoods." Or words to that effect.

Yes, r20, Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night, by Nik Cohn, in New York Magazine, 1976.

Even today, the Mob is still active in South Brooklyn -- Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights. Lower Bay Ridge is completely Mid-Eastern/Muslim now so you have to be up by the Verrazano Bridge to hang with the Italians. And it's true about safety. I lived there and never had a problem walking home late at night, with no one on the street. There was a "clubhouse" around the corner from where I lived. And the restaurants -- basically any one with an Italian menu (and some without) was a mob joint.

Yup. Carroll Gardens had that same reputation. When I moved there in 1996, La Repubblica was still available on the news stands, a saint was perched in every shop window, and you could still hear Italian spoken by the old folks. There are three funeral homes in Carroll Gardens. Scotto. Guido. And Raccuglia. Even a few years ago, a neighbor admonished not to talk about the mob while walking around the neighborhood.

Bay Ridge would have annual block parties and the mob-run joints would set up speakers and blast dance music out over the avenue. It would go on all day and into the night. When they wouldn't turn down the music after curfew, the precinct would send a black cop up to tell him to close it down because just about every other cop lived in the neighborhood and didn't want trouble from the capos having a good time with their goumadas.

Tony Manero was hot. I don't blame Annette for trying to get in his pants.

This was really an iconic role and Travolta was perfect. I wish he would have won Best Actor instead of Dreyfus.

I was a 12 year old completely obsessed with JT and so mad I couldn't see the film at the cinema. SNF JT was a fucking god, he was so ridiculously sexy.

I grew up in Bay Ridge and lived there until 2013. I'm puerto rican. I still have friends there. Tons of Italians and they still act like this. A friend of mine's brother (italian) decided to talk shit, drunk, to a black security guard in duane reade and got his beat. They are very racist and still have those accents. They crack me up though.

There were a lot of guys like this. No direction, working some dead end job. The only thing they looked forward to was going out friday and saturday nights and blowing their check.

I HATED Karen Lynn Gorney's character in this film. She was way too old, ugly, and charismatic to be paired up with Travolta.

Yeah she sucked.

Based on a Rolling Stones article. The author later admitted it was entirely fictional. There has never been a definitive disco movie. SNF completely ignores disco's origins in gay culture. Gay bars couldn't get bands to play in them, so they spun records again. Disco comes directly out of gay culture and reflected that, the ultimate disco movie would have to acknowledge that.

She was a snooty bitch in the film.

It's true that disco was on the way out by the time SNF came along, and that it was invented in the gay clubs of NYC in the early 70s, and not by the BeeGees. Record companies knew all the gay DJs working the clubs and paid big bucks to get their new releases onto the the club's turntables.

Was there ever a sequel that did less to enhance the reputation of its predecessor than "Staying Alive"?

To say disco died is to say that club music died, which of course it never has. And disco had mainstream revivals with early MTV (Madonna, Michael Jackson) and then late 80s/early 90s (House music.)

Disco didn't die, it was murdered. Yes, club music is around, but it's not disco, otherwise it would be called disco.

[quote]Disco didn't die, it was murdered.

Disco had a hot ass but it couldn't live forever.

[quote]SNF completely ignores disco's origins in gay culture.

No it doesn't. It hired one of the gayest actors in Hollywood. Would you rather John Wayne played Tony?

I always wished they'd killed off/murdered RAP later called hip-hop or whatever. But it went on and on and on.

Oh and sampling. OMG!

The word disco was too stigmatized and had to go, but the sound remained. Naturally disco continued to evolve and doesn't sound exactly the same anymore. How ridiculous rockers thought they could ban dance-able pop music forever.

Disco kind of devolved into New Wave in the early 80s, unless you were into Punk.

Disco was a bit different than other forms because not only was it about the music, but it was also about the clothing and the dancing. And the dancing was very synchronized. When YMCA was played, you did all the appropriate movements as a group.

[quote] How ridiculous rockers thought they could ban dance-able pop music forever.

And now rock is dead, so what goes around, comes around.

[quote]dance-able pop music

"Dance-able pop music" sounds even more revolting than disco.

[quote]When YMCA was played, you did all the appropriate movements as a group.

Apart from making yourself look like a Y, an M, a C, and an A were there any other appropriate moves done as a group to that song? 'Cuz that's another long-ass disco tune with a lot of words that aren't YMCA.

[quote]Apart from making yourself look like a Y, an M, a C, and an A were there any other appropriate moves done as a group to that song? 'Cuz that's another long-ass disco tune with a lot of words that aren't YMCA.

Here you go, smart ass.

Kudos to the little blind girl in the back row!

[quote]When YMCA was played, you did all the appropriate movements as a group.

I didn't.

There was a gaggle of Nanas and Nonnas who hung out at the Dunkin Donut on 5th and 85th street. They were there every day and stayed for hours. The employees never said a word to them. I thought that they must have been related to a some of the wiseguys who lived in Bayridge. Paulie Walnuts lived in Bayridge in real life. And Bobby Baccala owned a soup store in the same neighborhood.

[quote]I HATED Karen Lynn Gorney's character in this film. She was way too old, ugly, and charismatic to be paired up with Travolta.

She was supposed to be about 21 but looked like she was pushing 35.

Karen lynn Gorney was miscast. She also did not age well.

KLG had zero charisma, did not make a pretty couple and couldn't dance.

I dunno r52, in a weird way it worked casting her. When I first saw the movie, at 17, I thought she was terribly miscast

But her snobbish attitude and acting all superior to Tony worked. She was no great beauty and didn’t have much going on. But Tony had less going on and she seemed like a bright penny to him. Something he could aspire to become. Tony clinging to her showed his weakness.

(I can’t really articulate what I mean)

Didn't we just have this thread recently?

It was a measure of how dismal Tony Manero's life was that he thought somebody like Stephanie was "high class." Anyway, audiences didn't "get" this movie. They thought it looked so exciting and sexy, a buff John Travolta shaking his thing on the dance floor, that flashy night life, woo! Actually, the lives of the young people in the movie were so empty that they found respite in something as shallow and trivial as going out to a stupid disco every chance they could. Their favorite past time was really as big a nothing as their crummy Brooklyn lives were. And poor Bobby C.! I remember the scene at the disco where he's trying to get the attention of Tony's erstwhile priest brother ("Hey, Fathah!").; even the former priest seems to want to ignore him. Poor Bobby C. seemed like he had an IQ of about 75. But then all the principles in this movie seemed dumb as bricks. Was it because they were from Brooklyn? I once knew a guy from Brooklyn (he made a pass at me). He wasn't exactly unintelligent, but he was a total asshole. Are all Brooklynites dumb and/or unbearable?

I liked Annette better than Stephanie. She was at least sympathetic.

[quote]Paulie Walnuts lived in Bayridge in real life. And Bobby Baccala owned a soup store in the same neighborhood.

I think that Pauline Walnuts would be a good drag name.

Was there actually a "Samantha Sang"? It sounds like total Bee Gees on "Emotion". Also, why couldn't the Gibb Brothers let Tavares have their moment in the sun with "More Than A Woman", instead of recording it themselves too?

Samantha Sang was a real person.

[quote]Not so much Brooklyn. By the 1970s, many Italians had moved out of Brooklyn. He was typical of Long Island and New Jersey Italians. Goombas, all of them.

Can you say “white flight” boys and girls?

Disco is the origins of ALL dance and house music of today. Fact.

Except that the stuff that came after it is missing something.

Tony shooowduh stuwk wid me. I AM classs.

Ohmygawd, that school gym YMCA video is adorable. Love the sexy gay gym teacher having fun with his students. Kids need gay teachers! The little girl in green in the front row is awesome! She is bringing extra spirit to her moves and has added some twist jumps. She's so cute.

The music made the whole film.

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

You should be dancing was the best song.

Setting aside the travesty that was Staying Alive, if Tony had moved to Manhattan and made anything of himself (probably with the help of a rich sugar daddy), he would have quickly clocked to Annette's basic cluelessness and dropped her in a hot minute. I mean, he was beginning to get it even at the end of the first film, when he met her office fuckbuddy.

Hell, even if you take Staying Alive as canon, that's probably what Tony was supposed to have done. Stephanie is nowhere to be seen in that picture.

I always imagined that Annette got pregnant from the rape, and one of those two losers had to marry her (and Annette's self-esteem was low enough she would have jumped at the offer). Maybe they flipped a coin.

Annette was a dumb slut but she could probably make some mean raviolis. One of them would have married her after getting a job in construction. Livin' large.

Fun fact: Kate Mulgrew was the runner-up for Stephanie, and almost got it. The casting director for SNF was also the one for Ryan's Hope, which Mulgrew was on at the time.

They easily could've made Stephanie Irish instead of Italian and it wouldn't have affected the story.

I thought it was a documentary.

There’s a gang rape scene?

Annette, trying to make Tony jealous, starts to have sex with his three friends. She starts off wanting it, but then changes her mind

It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie, that how I remember it

[quote]KLG had zero charisma, did not make a pretty couple and couldn't dance.—She killed the movie

It was a shit movie. No one had charisma...especially the lead two women. But he was always a freak of fucking nature. Not surprised he turned out to be the oddball I always knew he was.

[quote] Also, why couldn't the Gibb Brothers let Tavares have their moment in the sun with "More Than A Woman", instead of recording it themselves too?

If it makes you feel better it was the Tavares version that was released as a single. Their version also appears in the movie, but for good reason the Bee Gees's version appears during the crucial dance scene: it is a beautifully sung and produced song.

There were discos like it all over the working class towns from Philadelphia to Boston. The movie was inaccurate though of course everything in such a movie gets souped up, art-directed and stereotyped to death. I had Italian American friends growing up and in my 20's and the disco and social scene was about the same as pictured. Some of the guys were VERY hot - peacocks. Only the Italians and blacks could become hush fine peacocks.

*such fine