Saturday Night Fever (1977)

A 40th anniversary theatrical showing of the iconic 1977 film Saturday Night Fever seemed like a perfect opportunity to fill its hole in my movie knowledge. Now I was expecting this movie to be a largely light film about dancing, likely with some young relationship angst to aid its legitimacy. That is not what I got because to my surprise this film has a plot, and its a good one, very well written. Saturday Night Fever goes dark, its not the surfacy film I was expecting, instead its a gritty 70's movie, though the disco soundtrack works against that a little bit. The film is a portrait of its time, place and people, the working class of 1970's Queens, principally its younger constituency. The film has elements of casual racism and violence, there is an attempted and actual rap in the film, and arguably a suicide. The film does not glamorize these things, but points to them as a reality of its setting, and a test of the character for its principal players. Again this movie is dark, it's not the disco stereotype you see when the movie is satirized, I'm actually surprised that I have been aware of this film for most of my life and yet had no idea what was at the core of it. It now makes sense to me why Gene Siskel was such a devoted fan of this movie. An absolute phenomenon at the time of its release the film cemented John Travolta as a star, but ironically did little for the long term prospects of its female lead Karen Lynn Gorney or any of the supporting players. This signature film of the disco era is more then its period trappings, though I admit I enjoyed those, but rather a timeless story of young people searching for who they are and for a direction in life. ****