Saturday Night Horror (Saturday Night Fever (DVD))

Member Name: welshwickedone

Product:	Saturday Night Fever (DVD)
Date:	19/10/06 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Dancing, Good Soundtrack

Disadvantages: Bad acting, Bad language

Saturday Night Fever. (Film Review Only)
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Plot.
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Tony Manero lives for his Saturday nights at his local disco where he is King of the dance floor. One Saturday night Stephanie Mangano catches his attention because of her great dancing and he eventually persuades her to be his partner at the clubs dance competition.



The Storyline.
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Tony Manero (John Travolta) is a young Italian American living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. His passion is dancing and one day he hopes to make it to the big time with his talent. Tony loves his Saturday nights, which he spends down his local Disco with his close friends Bobby C (Barry Miller), Joey (Joseph Cali) and Double J. (Paul Pape). Tony is extremely well known at the disco as he is King of the dance floor due to his great talent for dancing, but life outside the dancing for Tony is not that good.

He has a turbulent relationship with his aggressive Father Frank Manero Snr. (Val Bisoglio) and his Mother Flo Manero (Julie Bovasso) seems to condemn him all the time, as he is not as good as his Brother Frank Jnr in her opinion. Frank Jnr (Martin Shakar) has become a priest to his Parents delight and yet nothing Tony does is ever good enough. Tony is good though as long as he has is dancing and his women like Annette (Donna Pescow) his ex-girlfriend who is still in love with him. One Saturday night across the dance floor Tony attention is caught by a woman who he feels is a fantastic dancer and with his boyish charms, he want to know her more.

Tony tracks her down and introduces himself, but she is not interested. He eventually discovers her name is Stephanie Mangano (Karen Lynn Gorney) and with his corny chat up lines, he eventually gets her to agree to go for a coffee with him. Stephanie believes she is superior to Tony as she works in Manhattan and he still thinks all is great in his neighbourhood in Brooklyn. Tony is very persistent and after a while he manages to finally melt the frosty Stephanie and she agrees to partner him in the up coming dance competition.

Meanwhile problems occur at the family home when his Brother Frank quits the priesthood, and his father continues to cause problems. His friendships are not going any better either when Annette goes to extreme lengths to try and get Tony's affections back as she is upset that he is no dancing with her either now in the contest like they normally do..

The contest arrives and the contestants all do there routines, but who will win and what will become of Tony's relationships with his friends and Annette. You will have to watch to find out....



My Opinion.
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I may have grew up in the seventies and heard about this film many times over the years for Travolta and his dancing, but I have never actually sat down and watched the whole film until a week ago. I must say I was very shocked and surprised at the storyline and the film contents, which I never even knew about. Let us start my opinion though with the acting and of course the main star John Travolta. Ok Travolta can dance and when I say dance I mean dance, but you can tell his lack of acting experience in this film by his pathetic performance as he blurts out his lines. The way he walks as if he is a god with his looks is hysterical and in my opinion not in the slightest bit sexy, but then again maybe that is me getting old.

Karen Lynn Gorney's performance was in my opinion terrible and Gorney by name Gory acting by nature. Yes, ok like Travolta, she can dance but he voice and her accent are ridiculous. Her performance comes across, as totally drab, lifeless, and watching paint in my opinion is more entertaining. I do not think any other of the actors did that good a job either although Donna Pescow did give an expectable performance.

I have to say the soundtrack to this movie is brilliant even now but then again I love the Bee Gee’s as many of us do so if nothing else the film was entertaining for the music. The storyline was a great shock to me in places, with the over exposed sex scenes and the use of drugs. The killer of this film for me though was the excessive use of language, I am not a prude, don't get me wrong and yes I can accept the use of certain swear words and even use them myself on the rare occasion. The language used in this film in my opinion though did really overstep the mark, yes, that was the era and swearing is a part of life but I think they should draw the line somewhere. If I were Travolta's mother, I would have shoved a bar of soap in his mouth for one or two of the comments even if he was just following the script.

There is a great deal more to this story than just the dancing and it is a story that still carries great meaning even now, they portrayal of the Violence, Tragedy and Heartbreak. Somehow, this film began the rise to fame of Travolta, but in my opinion, it was grease that clinched the real stardom for him.

The Director John Badham has tried his best with this film but as everyone knows even directors cannot turn coal to gold so what more could he do. Maybe a good kick up the actor’s backside to get them to act better may have helped, although saying that even that would not have worked with Karen Lynn Gorney. Shame really when you think that this director has gone on to give us great entertainment films such as 'Assassin', 'Stakeout', 'Short Circuit', 'Another Stakeout' and many more.



Technical details.
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Cast.
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John Travolta Tony Manero
Karen Lynn Gorney Stephanie Mangano
Barry Miller Bobby C
Joseph Cali Joey
Paul Pape Double J.
Donna Pescow Annette
Julie Bovasso Flo Manero
Val Bisoglio Frank Manero Snr
Martin Shakar Frank Manero Jnr


Director John Badham
Certificate 18 years and over
Year 1978
Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic
Languages English - Dolby Digital (5.1)
Subtitles Arabic ; Bulgarian ; Czech ; Danish ; Dutch ; English ; English for the hearing impaired ; Finnish ; Hungarian ; Icelandic ; Norwegian ; Polish ; Romanian ; Swedish
Duration 1 hour and 53 minutes (approx)

Welshwickedone ©

Summary: And I thought it was just about dancing, how wrong was I.