(Tony Manero); Cynthia Rhodes (Jackie); Finola Hughes (Laura); Steve Inwood (Jesse, the Director); Julie Bovasso (Mrs. Manero); Frank Stallone (Carl)(1983/Paramount Pictures) DVD / VHS
Rave Reviews
“A camp classic … a musical trip through Hell!”
—Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide
“Constantly falls flat on its face … [take] Saturday Night Fever, add some bad hair, too tight pants and too much glitter and you have a disaster!”—Ali Barclay, BBC Films (Web site)
“An impossibly funny series of overproduced production numbers. It’s high-tech camp heaven!”
—Edward Margulies and Stephen Rebello, Bad Movies We Love
Plot, What Plot? Hollywood has yet to find the cure for the disease called “sequelitis,” the uncontrollable urge to make a sequel to a successful film, even if it’s six years later, the sequel costs three times as much as the original film did, and historically sequels are lucky to gross even 60 percent of what the previous film did at the box office.
A perfect example of the deadly side effects of sequelitis is Staying Alive, the utterly unnecessary 1983 follow-up to John Travolta’s first monster hit, 1977’s Saturday Night Fever. Not only did SNF gross $142 million and become the best-selling sound track album of all time, but Travolta’s performance was actually nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. For his performance in this sequel, he was also nominated … for Worst Actor at the 4th Annual Razzies.
Staying Alive made numerous avoidable errors on its way to the screen, the first one being that it took too long to arrive. By the time of its release, disco was long since dead and buried. Second, it completely misunderstood the appeal of Travolta’s Tony Manero character, thinking he was analogous to Rocky, which may be why they turned the screenwriting and directing of this second film over to … Sylvester Stallone. Thirdly, Sly either didn’t watch (or just as likely didn’t “get”) the first film and its appeal: True, Tony is a lug, but he’s basically likable and honorable at film’s end. He’s also a cliché of macho bravado, someone who wouldn’t be caught dead being dressed by Cher’s favorite costumer, Bob Mackie … so guess who did the costumes for the big musical sequence at the end of Staying Alive?
On the disco floor in Saturday Night Fever, Manero discovered a place where his own talents made him special. But as Staying Alive opens, he’s living in a seedy Manhattan hotel, working nights as a tight-pantsed cocktail waiter and running around to cattle-call auditions all day for Broadway musical dancers. The fact that the Tony Manero from the first film would never even consider wearing tights is lost on this film’s creators. But throwing a Broadway musical into this film allowed Sly to hire his little brother Frank Stallone to create no fewer than seven songs, as well as play the bass guitar player in Manero’s girlfriend’s band.
As the film opens, Manero’s main squeeze is Jackie. Played by Cynthia Rhodes, she’s the only really likable character in the film. So naturally, when Tony is smitten with the star of a musical that features Jackie as a backup dancer, Manero tramples all over Jackie’s feelings for him. The new object of Tony’s affections is a smug, self-impressed rich bitch, played by soap opera veteran (and Worst Supporting Actress nominee) Finola Hughes. In the dance scenes, Hughes moves like Catherine O’Hara doing Lola Heatherington on SCTV. And in the “dramatic” scenes, she comes off like Pia Zadora attempting a British accent. Her character is summed up by her line “We met, I liked you, we made it. What do you think it was, true love?” She later inadvertently serves as the mouthpiece for what may be Stallone’s philosophy of life: “Everybody uses everybody—don’t they?”
The utterly predictable plot follows Travolta through his wham-bam-nice-dancin’-witcha-ma’am relationship with Hughes, his breakup with Rhodes, and his eventually being cast opposite Hughes as the lead male dancer in a big-budget musical entitled Satan’s Alley As the show’s director, who looks like a community theatre version of Kenny Loggins, accurately describes the show, “It’s a journey through Hell…”
Literally overfull with smoke, mirrors, and chrome, Satan’s Alley looks like a spectacularly tasteless Best Song production number from a 1970s Oscarcast. Mackie’s costumes include blood-spattered leotards, metallic silver headbands, and what look like pairs of men’s extra-large gym socks stuffed into the crotches of every male dancer. There’s lots of thrusting, leaping, straining, and loud grunting throughout the “show” as we watch its opening-night performance. At intermission, the director comes backstage to berate Travolta with a comment every viewer has also been thinking: “What were you doing out there? You call that dancing?” Travolta’s response? He literally flings Hughes offstage near the end of the show, and launches into an improvised dance solo. In the real world, this would get him fired and drummed out of the Broadway Dancers’ Union. But in this film, it’s greeted by a standing ovation and the realization that tomorrow morning Tony will be a star.
Thus Stallone and his coconspirators on Staying Alive have taken Tony Manero, a macho man looking for his own identity, and turned him into a male Ruby Keeler. Staying Alive plays like a comedy. But then, neither Travolta nor his “mentor” for this film, Stallone, has ever been funnier than when they weren’t trying to be.
Dippy Dialogue
Tony Manero (John Travolta), upon meeting snooty Laura (Finola Hughes): “Did you hear the way she talks? It’s so intelligent-like … I love it!”
Razzie Credential
Travolta was dually nominated as Worst Actor for both this film and his other 1983 bomb, Two of a Kind.
Choice Chapter Stop
Chapter 14 (“Satan’s Alley”): The “big dance number” from Tony’s Broadway debut vehicle, this is often cited as one of the funniest, lamest dance sequences ever committed to film.