Still feeling the Fever.
It’s one of the most iconic films of the 1970s and is now over forty years old, but Saturday Night Fever is still lauded as being one of the best films about night club life. It is set in Brooklyn around four guys who generally spend their Saturday nights drinking away their wages and trying to attract local girls who invariably want nothing to do with them. It stars John Travolta (as Tony Manero). The plot centres around his increasing boredom with his life and how his love and ability to dance might just provide him with an escape to better times and also make him a better person. While you may not see all the dance crazes and moves from Saturday Night Fever in a Cheltenham Nightclub any more you can certainly have a great time there and a visit to undertheprom.com can get you set up for a top night.
Here are a few things that you may not know about the film.
- A lot of the script was improvised. As an example, in one scene Tony has spent an age getting his hair right only for his father to come and ruffle it. “Don’t touch the hair!” shouts Tony but this is unscripted as Travolta was genuinely concerned that it would be messed up before he filmed later sequences.
- To get a look of realism Donna Perscow, the other lead in the film, wasn’t told of a fake platform under the bridge where the boys jump off. Her fear isn’t acting it’s a real emotion.
- While we’re on the subject of Donna Perscow’s role, she was almost not cast for the part. She was seen as too pretty so decided to put on a few pounds in weight and then allowed the native Brooklyn accent she’d been working hard to get rid off to come back.
- Travolta ran and danced for three hours a day to get and keep in the right shape for the film as the dance scenes were quite demanding.
- The most iconic scene is where we see a determined Tony Manero flaring off on the dance floor in an all out attempt to win the dance contest trophy. He is wearing a white polyester suit that is now entrenched in film history. It recently sold for the incredible price of $145,000 to a private investor who loves the film.