January 26th, 2010 by soullldiva

Was there ever a more iconoclast dance movie than Saturday Night Fever? Ok, let’s narrow it down to contemporary dancing (yes, yes, I know about The Red Shoes). Probably nope. Just take the poster for instance:

The pose, the suit, the icon.

Saturday Night Fever was originally seen by Paramount Pictures as this little nothing of a vulgar movie with bad language, nudity, and even a rape scene. Plus, it was doomed by the waves of “Disco Sucks” moving across the US. In the VH1 documentary on the movie, the producer of the movie soundtrack talks about having the masters to the album in the trunk of his car, driving down Hollywood Boulevard and reading the “Death to Disco” bumper sticker on the car in front of him. But then, movie producer Robert Stigwood did something completely unprecedented and brilliant. He released the Bee Gee’s single “More Than a Woman” from the soundtrack a full month before the movie was to be released (of course, this happens all the time now). It hit number one, and paved the way for the movie to follow.

Even greater story than that is a fascinating tale about how John Travolta was shown the original cut of his now famous solo dance on the floor with the colored lights. He was dismayed that it was pretty much all in medium and closeup shots and you missed all the hard work he had done on the dance. He sat down with the editor and helped him re-cut it from scratch, to show everything and really feature those disco moves he did so well. Thanks John, because now we can see this:

Pretty damn amazing, and iconic. Here’s to the genius of Saturday Night Fever!