December 18, 2007

The making of Saturday Night Fever. In 1976, producer Robert Stigwood placed a million-dollar bet on a young TV star, signing John Travolta to a three-movie deal. First up, a low-budget production based on a New York magazine article about disco-crazy Italian-American kids in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn: Saturday Night Fever. From Travolta's famous "Stayin' Alive" strut to the mid-filming death of his girlfriend, to three harrowing nights on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, SAM KASHNER has the story of a culture-bending hit, whose music–by a revitalized 60s band called the Bee Gees–became the best-selling soundtrack of its time.
posted by HawthorneWingo 17 years ago
  • Great moments in working class cinema #524!
  • I read the article in its print version right after a chance rewatching of the film. It really was something pretty special.
  • Great article, HW. Relating this back to the recent thread on soundtracks, it seems to me that the SNF soundtrack completely dominated and overshadowed the movie, perhaps even to its detriment. It wasn't until sometime in the 1990s that I sat down to watch the film and found it to be quite decent - a genuinely interesting study of popular culture at a place and time. Up until then, my BGphobia had prompted me to steer clear.