"Saturday Night Fever" was never made or released

I can't objectively answer this question, as my first memories of music obsessiveness was listening to the SNF 8-track on repeat for weeks upon weeks... if anything to hear "Calypso Breakdown". But looking back now, SNF seems to have served disco -- the phenomenon -- its overdose. "Can't Stop The Music" provided the clown-colored nails in the coffin.

As far as the Village People's career goes, you're certainly correct. But I can't agree in relation to disco. The phenomenon was already withering away by 1980, and "Can't Stop The Music" just kinda blew it an extra gust of wind into the grave.

Another question. Without disco's ubiquity, would we have gotten all that rad late-seventies/early eighties punk-disco fusion?

The only truly important upshot of SNF's non-existence: John Travolta fades into semi-oblivion, except for cameos in Moby videos and 1-800 commercials.

30 years old this winter.
gene siskel's favourite ever film.
a pop MEAN STREETS?
the best clubbing movie ever made?

thoughts?

It's a fantastic film. The more time goes on the more I'm amazed something like it was ever made.

first R-rated flick I ever snuck into...

Deluxe DVD on the way

i'm astonished it's not been talked about more on ilm/ ilx.

Will that DVD have anything more not on the current one?

Here are the Extras announced for the set...

.Commentary by director John Badham (used on previous DVD)
.Catching the Fever
.A 30-Year Legacy
.Making Soundtrack History
.Platforms & Polyester
.Deejays & Discos
.Spotlight on Travolta
.Back to Bay Ridge
.Dance Like Travolta with John Cassese
.Fever Challenge!
.70’s Discopedia

---

Hmm. I think I'll stick with the one I have. (Badham's commentary isn't the greatest but it has some good details.)

It'd be cool if the alternate (PG-rated) scenes were included as extras on the disc! (The filmmakers shot alternate takes of all foul-mouthed scenes, with the language cleaned up, in anticipation of future TV broadcasts. I know of no other film that's ever gotten the same treatment.)

I think the PG version had a theatrical release at the same time as the R, because the week after I saw it I was talking about some of the R parts with kids who had seen the movie but not those scenes.

it did indeed. check it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Saturday_night_fever_pg_version_movie_poster.jpg

No Saturday Night fever - no overexposure, maybe disco doesn't die.

OTMaybe. i think the rec co's were clueless abt how to promote/market disco and would've reduced it to a fad and courted overexposure w/o SNF. their resistence to 12-inch singles & insistence on filling stores w/disco LPs was rigid and still would've led to the crash of 1979.

or maybe the BeeGees Sgt Pepper film would've become a big hit!!!

xpost: nice, thanks!

i thought this thread was going to be some sort of "the moon landing was faked" conspiracy theory

What if "Capricorn One" was never made or released?

what if can't stop the music was never made or released?

what if chinese Democracy was never made or released?

what were the other rip-offs that are often mentioned in a sweep? were that really that many? let's see...

can't stop the music
thank god it's friday

others?

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CY6M5B5TL._SS500_.jpg

http://imagesource.allposters.com/images/pic/153/421579~The-Last-Days-of-Disco-Posters.jpg

"Disco will never be over -- it will always live in our minds and hearts. Something like this, that was this big and this important and this great, will never die. Oh, for a few years, maybe many years it will be considered passé and ridiculous. It will be misrepresented in caricature and sneered at. Or worse, completely ignored. People will laugh about John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, white polyester suits and platform shoes and going like this. [does John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever pose]
Well, we had nothing to do with those things and still loved Disco. Those who didn't understand will never understand; Disco was much more, and much better than all that. Disco was too great and too much fun to be gone forever, it's got to come back some day. I just hope it will be in our life times."

-- The Last Days of Disco

Young punks have far less reason to deny their disco roots and consequently punk crosses over with disco to a far greater extent, more like it did with reggae.

KC & The Sunshine band and Hamilton Bohannon tour the UK supporting The Clash.

After quitting the Sex Pisols, John Lydon records a series of albums with Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards.

The Slits are heralded as the most successful girl band of all time as they enjoy worldwide success througout the '70's, '80's and '90's with their ubiquitous "Typical Girl Power" slogan and an unprecedented run of hit singles and multi-platinum selling albums.

Orange Juice regularly tour the world, where renditions of each of their innumerable hit singles are always received with rapturous applause by stadia packed with adoring fans.

U2 also tour the UK for several months every summer, where their covers of popular hits by successful bands like Delta 5, Josef K, Gang Of 4 and Scritti Politti are usually received with complete indifference by the pissed-up holiday-makers who happen to be propping up the bar in the holiday camp at the time. They still have a few copies of "Three" for sale, if you ask any of the members of the band after the performance.

After Ian Curtis commits suicide, the remaining members of Joy Division start experimenting with drum machines and synthesisers and.... OK, maybe I'd better quite here before this starts getting stupid.

roller boogie looks either great or so-bad-it's-good. which is it?

so bad it's good. Linda Blair was cute. There's a cool chase scene and I like the title theme.