Staying Alive

Continuing my plan to watch every Sly Stallone movie in order, I come to Saturday Night Fever.

Plot In A Paragraph: In this sequel to Saturday Night Fever, former disco king Tony Manero (John Travolta) has left Brooklyn and lives in Manhattan. He stays in a cheap hotel and works as a dance instructor by day and as a waiter at a dance club on a night, trying to succeed as a professional dancer on Broadway. The breakaway from his Brooklyn life, family and friends seems to have matured Tony and refined his personality, represented by his diminished accent and his avoidance of alcohol and swear words. However, certain things have not changed, as with his most recent girlfriend, who's a dancer and also the singer of a band. He feels free to pursue other women, but gets very jealous if someone looks at her too long.

Stallone has Travolta looking the heat he ever looked, the movie movies at a good pace and is entertaining enough, while not getting close to the first movie. Despite a critical mauling, this was one of the 1983 top ten most successful films at the box-office.

To date this is the only movie Sly has directed, that he didn't star in. Which I think is a shame, as he is a talented director.

The original writer of Saturday Night Fever Norman Wexler gets a co-writer credit for the sequel.

Staying Alive was directed and co-written by Sylvester Stallone. The story owes a debt to A Chorus Line. Some of the clunky dialogue and scenes are likely to be the fault of Stallone.

However Stallone also got John Travolta into shape. Here he looks like a dancer with rippling muscles.

The story has moved on six years. Tony Manero is trying to hit it big as a bit part player in Broadway. He gets a long list of rejections and struggles on with the support of his girlfriend.

An abrasive relationship with the star of a new Broadway show, Laura (Finola Hughes) has not gone unnoticed by its director. Tony might have a girlfriend but he hits on Laura if it might help his career.

Travolta presents an older Tony Manero but he is still immature, shallow and self centred. Manero has a rawness and streetwise that attracts the attention of the director of the new Broadway show.

The film is let down by a thin uninvolving plot and too many songs that just does not fit in with the film. Whereas those Bee Gees songs became classics in Saturday Night Fever, they just are forgettable here. I thought Vince DiCola's composition blended better.

The real low point was the opening night of the campy Broadway show 'Satan's Alley' that Manero gets a starring role opposite with Laura. Conceptually is should had been reworked, maybe something more disco themed.

Travolta understands Manero but the film felt too different from Saturday Night Fever. Staying Alive did well at the box office when it was released but it was critically lambasted. It was a big task for it to even equal the original's success which had entered public consciousness in a big way. Looking at the movie again it does fit in well with the MTV aesthetics of the 1980s but it lacks the grittiness.

Seeing this film on TV again the other night made me wonder how amazing the human body is.... or more specifically John Travolta's body.

In Michael and Get Shorty he had a tremendous girth for the character's roles yet the films before and after Phenomenon and Broken arrow show a different size. and then we have the extreme end of the scale in this film. Sly Stallone trained Travolta for 3 months to get him into the rippling muscled fat free condition he displays in this film.

It just goes to show you that your fat levels aren't really THAT predetermined by birth and genetics afterall. All you have to to is be committed to attaining a the shape you want to be. Travolta can be slim, medium or large build, muscled, fat or average depending on the film role his ability in this regard is second only to Robert deNiro of raging Bull and Cape fear physique abilities.

Travolta wil never be out of work while he is able to mold himself into his characters. The charcter of Tony would not have been believeable in this film in any shape other than the one depicted by John Travolta in this film. he got it spot on --- in appearance, line delivery and overall feeling!

7/10

Watching "Staying Alive" will do that to you. A truly perplexing movie it raises all sorts of questions like "Why was this thing made?" and "Why would Travolta do this?" I guess those were pretty lean years for Barbarino, so we should cut him some slack. Now Sylvester Stallone, he should have known better.

"Staying Alive" is the sequel to the hit, and FAR superior movie, "Saturday Night Fever." This film is hardly a sequel people were crying out to see, and it doesn't surprise me in the least that it's a very obscure movie.

Travolta reprises his "Fever" role, as Tony Manero, the big-haired, tight-clothes, bad-accented dancer from Brooklyn. On his own and trying to make it as a dancer, he works his hardest to become a big star. Does he make it? Well you have to watch, and let me tell you it's a riveting ride.

Or not. "Alive" is a terribly funny movie, for all the wrong reasons. The play Tony ends up in is a particular highlight. Called "Satan's Alley," it's a man's descent into hell, full of laser lights, mist, and scantily clad women. This is the first Broadway movie I had heard of that was totally dancing, no singing, speaking, or character development. Kudos to the fact checker for the film, who had obviously seen a lot of Broadway shows. Even "Cats" was more coherent than that piece of crap.

But the real highlight is Travolta himself. As directed by Stallone, he bears more than a passing resemblance to Rambo in almost every scene of consequence. Every single time the guy dances in the movie one of two things happen. Either A) he gets really sweaty and greasy, or B) you get tons of shot of his disgusting package. Those dance pants are WAY too tight.

"Staying Alive" is a bizarre movie. You get the feeling Stallone and the rest of the crew thought they were making an incredible movie. It shows in every self-obsessed frame of this film; it takes itself way too seriously and ends up looking absolutely ridiculous. Recommended for fans of ridiculously poor movies.

Oh! So hokey! So bad! Tony Manero gets a job on the world's worst Broadway musical where two soap opera actresses catfight over his affections. Did I mention that all the music is by Frank Stallone? Of course this is because Sylvester Stallone directed, but Sly also keeps things in the family way by plopping Mama Jackie Stallone headbands on every friggin' chick in the film. The musical seems to involve a lot of dancers writhing about in "hell" (Drowning in dry ice, wearing Jackie headbands and listening to Frank, so there is at least a few scant shreds of reality fluttering here.), basting Tony in baby oil and tearing at his loincloth. This goes on non-stop for about the last 20 minutes, except for the moment when the director comes back waving his scarf at Tony and hollering "What is going on out there?" (Yeah, man, I was wondering too.) Still, if you're a fan of Travolta in his liberally greased and half-naked physical prime, you might derive a modicum of enjoyment from this. (I didn't. My mom did.) Great basket shot at the end, though.