Fred
GRAHAM. In TRIK Stigwood UNCOUTES • Q: Spot the odd one out | behind disco fever realised Astaire, Gene Kelly, John Lee Travolta and myself, writes TONY A: Travolta - ail the rest are dancers.
However, disco aticianados who go to see Salunday Night Fever may well Feel, like I do, that the bigger the lie the tore people will believe it.
case. the Robert Organisation has that not to see the film would be Rivalling Star Wars and Close publicity the "disco spectacular" threatens to bring in equally huge dividends Saturday Night Fever is not so much a story as a collection of rise cliches from better films.
Set in the sleazy zones of New York (like Taxi Driver), Tony (John Travolta), a 19-yeur-old Halian Catholic and hi take Mean ties tha ale meaning in their lives except through fighting Puerto Ricans West Side Story) and Saturday night discos.
He falls in love with Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) who is to CACTUS! existence of Bay Hrocklvn for the and glitter of film Manhattan. Their relabionship is an apparent watershed in Tony, in particular, promises sto be less infantile in future. A clumsy script suggests that this nauseous in its natural habitat, The main trouble with the film is that nowhere is its aim of revealing the "reality" that lies Socialist Challenge and The Other Bookshop present a new joint venture - This reality is fuelled by the frustration of working class poet end American fag end American capitalism Much of the film is haunted OSSESHITE mages thar flit across Tony's Pacioo, Rocky and Farrab Fawcett-Majors; he eats White Castle hanburgers; he grooves to the Bee Gees and so on, TENUOUS Yer, apart trom a lenuous exploration modern American dream, Saturday Night Fever falls apart as it loses sight of its subject. We are not witnessing the despair of a young worker so much as tbe of vet another petty-bourgeois superstar.
Such a ghostly transition leaves it carthly traces In its effort to be realistic, the film portrays Tony and his fellow machos ashne bul a blacks, gays and women in a torrent of backward benavour Apart feebl moralising that trickles throug! the film, this behaviour come dangerously being legitimised through the lack of an alternative vision. Tony's cry of anguish— "Everybody's dumpin' on everybody' not the most useful critique of what has gone before in the Like most people, I went to be dazzled by nimble foot-work and catchy track musse. Velici brings me back to where 1 SERTEEL trankly it's not a patch on Top Hat.
Saturday Night Fever l presently siowing at cinenias the south Midlands and West Yorkshir England. next week, and then on to the • rest of the country.