Say what you will but Saturday Night Fever is probably one of the most culturally significant films of the last fifty years. Released in the United States on December 16, 1977 Saturday Night Fever not only revolutionized the movie and film industries but also changed the way people dressed, communicated and socialized. Tight bell bottoms, gold chains and platform shoes quickly became the in fashions. While large conventions are held to honor the mastery that is the Star Wars saga, it was Saturday Night Fever that truly changed how people lived. Classes in disco dancing popped up all over the place, as people yearned to learn the latest moves, the idea of a movie soundtrack started to become commonplace after three songs written and recorded by the Bee Gees (“How Deep is Your Love,” “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever”) rocketed to the top of the charts and stayed there for over twenty weeks.
Norman Wexler’s screenplay was based on a July 7, 1976 New York Magazine cover story titled, “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” by Nik Cohn. The article talked about how new generations of young men in the suburbs were agreeably working nine to five jobs during the week. However, on Saturday nights they were all breaking out into the discos to dance, party and score with the chicks.
John Travolta is perfectly cast as Tony Monero, a seemingly slacker paint store employee living in Brooklyn with his parents. On Saturday nights, Tony is the king of the disco. On the dance floor he exudes confidence and is the epitome of cool to all his buddies. Saturday Night Fever starts out as a story as Tony’s all consuming attempt to win a dance contest at a club called Odyssey 2001. After he spurns his former dance partner Annette (Donna Pescow) for the smart and sexier Stephanie Mangano, the plot takes a much darker turn and how little dancing there is in the film.
When Saturday Night Fever first arrived on screens back in 1977, most people just saw it as a disco flick with great beats. Very little mention was made of the underlying darkness of the whole story. Tony is really a fairly pathetic character, desperate to get out of his dead end life in Brooklyn. Stephanie for all her annoying qualities lives in Manhattan. She represents Tony’s ticket out of a life of nothing. While his friends are likely destined to remain in Brooklyn in dead end jobs, married to women they don’t love. Annette a rather naïve, dimwitted girl is gang rapped by a couple of guys in a car while Tony sits in the front seat. Tony’s friend Bobby C. gets a girl pregnant and throughout much of the film he seeks advice on how to handle the situation, even as the boys hit the disco and live their Saturday life. No one around Bobby truly offers to help and he “accidentally” plunges to his death off the Brooklyn Bridge. Saturday Night Fever was really a film about youth looking for a way to escape poverty and rigidity than a dance contest.
However, it is the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack that rose up above all else. A series of Bee Gees dance grooves along with several other club friendly songs helped the soundtrack spawn several hit singles and gross 285 million dollars in just the albums first eight months of release. The Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack has sold over forty million copies and is one of the biggest selling records of all time.
This 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 encode (1.78:1) is really superb. Diffusion filters are used all over the place, softening light sources and dulling colors. There is also some film grain. But the source is fabulous compared to previous video versions. The print is clean, with no dirt or blemishes and the grain is natural and consistent. Colors are as vivid, with flush reds and blues that remain surprisingly stable and free of noise or over-saturation. The detail is impressive — despite all the soft lighting, there is great depth to the picture. Even shadow delineation is superior. There is some slight edge enhancement employed to compensate for the softness but it isn’t overly noticeable. Paramount has done a great job on a classic title all movie lovers should own.
Paramount has remixed Saturday Night Fever in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround (48kHz/24-bit). The biggest beneficiary of the remaster is the music. All of the Bee Gees tunes sound great. The great tunes now have heft and depth, with punchy low bass and clear highs (perfect for all those falsettos). The surrounds aren’t overused on the music to gimmicky effects.
The rest of the mix can’t quite compare to the music but it’s still strong for a ’70s film. There is some flatness to dynamic range, and low bass doesn’t pump like it does with the music. Dialogue is intelligible. Surrounds are sometimes active with a decent level of atmosphere and sporadic discrete effects. This remix doesn’t totally compensate for the dated aspects of the original source, but it delivers where it really matters — the music.
Paramount has created a new 30th Anniversary Edition for Blu-ray, which retains all of the extras from the 2007 version, minus the VH-1 special and includes newly-produced featurettes. The result is a slightly improved package, though the lack of a fresh interview with Travolta is a disappointment. (All video material is presented in full 1080 video.)
• Audio Commentary – Director John Badham provides a solo commentary that balances nicely with the retrospective documentary. ‘Fever’s pop masterstroke would prove to be a wonderful accident: the Bee Gees songs were a last-minute choice because they were so cheap! Badham also offers the best insight on casting Travolta and what he brought to the film, both as an actor and a dancer.
• Documentary (HD, 75 minutes) – Called “Catching the Fever,” this is a hefty retrospective doc broken up into over a half-dozen little parts. The participants assembled are quite extensive — interviewed are Badham, stars Donna Pescow, Karen Lynn-Gorney, Barry Miller and Martin Shakar, producer Robert Stigwood, and Bee Gee Barry Gibb (again, only Travolta is missing). There isn’t much behind-the-scenes footage, but just about every important aspect of the Saturday Night Fever phenomenon is covered.
The documentary segments are: “A 30-Year Legacy (15 minutes), “Making Soundtrack History” (12 minutes), “Platforms and Polyester” (10 minutes), “Deejays and Disco” (10 minutes), “Spotlight on Travolta” (4 minutes), “Back to Bay Ridge” (9 minutes), “Dance like Travolta with John Cassese” (10 minutes) and “Fever Challenge” (4 minutes).
• Trivia Track – Next we have “’70s Discopedia,” a pop-up track that is a lot of fun. The graphics are simple but cute, and the facts focused more on the disco era than the same old production tidbits we learned in the featurettes.
• Deleted Scenes (HD) – Badham offers optional commentary on three scenes.
