The First and Soon The Last Days Of Disco

Catching Saturday Night Fever in 1977

There was a 16mm collector I dealt with in the 70's who had a startling resemblance to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, which he accentuated via disco garb, a gold cross around his neck, and hair blown/gelled to stand-still. His was lifestyle to which many aspired for what turned out to be a short while, but when this fad burned, it was sure enough a disco inferno. My junior year roommate would take post-graduate dance lessons so he could score like Travolta. That didn't necessarily work out, but Arthur Murray was enriched for it. Disco fit comfortable in the cheesy shoebox four-plex where I first saw Saturday Night Fever. When Travolta walked down that street in opening credits, I figured someday they'd laugh aloud at this, but years proved me wrong, for Saturday Night Fever plays well as drama, dance recital, or 70's update on Rebel Without A Cause. I wouldn't want the era back --- you can have the 70's and most of its so-called Second Golden Era movies --- but this one has values beyond tired engine of nostalgia that drives us back to stuff seen during impressionable years.

We had a club scene in my college town, but I was gone from there before Saturday Night Fever hit. Well-known was fact that it transformed bars and dance joints all around, nightlife catching fever and mimicking the film's every detail. There was a local lime pit they called the "Brick House" that duplicated, indeed went one better, the sleaze underlying Saturday Night Fever's club scene. Not a few of former Elementary School peers were corrupted there. Drugs seemed the handmaiden of disco, Brick Housers there to use, narc, or both. I never got round to disco dancing for lack of aptitude and unwillingness to venture into loud places where you couldn't hear folks talk. Saturday Night Fever, then, was more or less limit of my exposure to the life. Did I miss much? Fashion would turn on disco soon enough. Serious music folk disdained it from a start line, and the style today invites little beyond faint ridicule. Why then, do I turn on the Sirius 70's channel every time I climb in the car?

The clothes were horrific, men's shirts like bleached snakeskin. Bellbottoms were an affront even as we wore them. I'd hear a voice saying, Take that off, you fool!, it being my own and addressed often into mirrors. Talk about Wrong Then, Wrong Now. Radio was glutted with Bee Gees soundtrack tunes. I remember Stayin' Alive being interrupted with news that Elvis had died. So goes one epoch as another takes its place. The Saturday Night Fever album, and eight-tracks, sold beyond dreams of Midas. Was a new record set by this soundtrack? Youngsters wanted to see the movie, but were deniedaccess by an "R" rating. I wonder how many theatres observed the age restriction. Colonel Forehand had earlier let Ann in to see The Godfather when she was eleven, after all, but Paramountsmelt money they were missing and so cleansed Saturday Night Fever to qualify for PG status. I remember the slogan: It's Now Rated PG, Because We Want Everyone To See ...

I snuck Hardee's hamburgers into aforementioned shoebox for Fever's matinee. They fit comfortably in each pocket. All the Hanes Mall concession counter got out of me was price of a Coke. As previously asked, was there anything so stripped-down and austere as theatres built in the 70's? We didn't get stereo sound around here until venues elsewhere were tired of it. Screens seemed the size of televisions today, but didn't look as good (I saw Star Wars the first time in what amounted to a closet). In fact, 35mm circa '77 seems not a patch in hindsight on clarity courtesy Para's EPIX channels, where Saturday Night Fever plays HD-frequent and improves on dim-lit pic-going days. I'll not kid myself to having it made back then, certainly not insofar as crummy theatres generally sat in (but hold on, was this peculiar to venues within driving distance of me, or were conditions everywhere as blighted?). Saturday Night Fever being effective drama is happy bonus to music for which it will always be better known. The Rebel Without A Cause links are visible in parental strife, and there's a Sal Mineo kid to worship Travolta's lead. Saturday Night Fever was a hugely influential show --- it's just that the influence didn't last long --- there being but brief time before a changing pop culture discarded the film surely as it would disco.