History Film / SaturdayNightFever

* BasedOnAGreatBigLie: Was based on Nik Cohn's article, ''Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night'' about Cohn witnessing a fight outside the ''2001 Odyssey'' disco. 20 years after the article's publication, Cohn admitted it was complete fiction. He basically just took his memories of the Mod movement in Britain in TheSixties and plugged them into the New York disco scene a decade later.

* IHaveNoSon: After Frankie [[spoiler:leaves the priesthood, his parents are heartbroken (especially his mother), and they eventually seem disown him.]]

* FreezeFrameBonus: The movie ends with a still shot of the final scene over the credits, showing [[spoiler:Tony and Stephanie reconciling and agreeing to be JustFriends with a warm embrace.]]

* AccompliceByInaction: Tony [[spoiler: allowing his guy friends to gang-rape Annette and doing nothing to stop it. He is also unable to stop Bobby C. from falling to his demise.]]

[[quoteright:321:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/730809saturday-night-fever-posters1_1827.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:321:''[[Music/TheBeeGees ♫ Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive... ♫]]'']]

* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Annette, who pins for Tony.

** This also applies to Tony and his friends when compared to their original ''New York Magazine'' counterparts. While Vincent and his peers were depicted as egomaniacal with violent fanatsies and misogynist tendencies, none of them were shown to be involved in any rape attempts or even explicitly portrayed as all that violent.

* JabbaTableManners: Tony has a habit of eating with his mouth open.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Stephanie calls out Tony during their lunch scene for not having any future prospects and not going to formal education (college), but the rest of the film shows that she isn't the ultra-sophisticated worker she portrays herself as. Scenes both before and after this show her mispronouncing words ("didn't take no college" / her mispronunciation of "vivacious"), her claims that she's a bigshot in New York belie the fact that she's only working an entry-level position, and for all her airs, her comments and current situation suggests that she did (or does) allow men to take advantage of her in exchange for favors or connections, to the point that Tony calls her out on this.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Tony's father is a bit of a {{Jerkass}} in the movie but the stage play turns him into a violent alcoholic who once broke Tony's arm as a child.

* AutoErotica

* BookEnds: The film famously opens with Tony strutting down the streets of New York City to the tune of "Stayin' Alive". The sequel film ends on the exact same image, to the exact same tune.

* DancingIsSeriousBusiness: Quite possibly the TropeCodifier.

* DistractedByTheSexy: In universe, Tony's father looks at the Creator/FarrahFawcett poster on Tony's bedroom wall like he's never seen nipples before.

* DysfunctionalFamily: Just watch the dinner scene.

* EstablishingCharacterMusic: Tony is memorably introduced strutting down the streets of New York to "Stayin' Alive" by Music/TheBeeGees.

* FanDisservice: Annette's gang-rape.

* FeetFirstIntroduction: This is how we meet Tony. The man's strut is a defining character trait, often parodied in later works. Contrary to rumor, that's all the real Travolta strutting down the streets, with the lone exception of one quick moment (the comparison of Tony's shoe to a shoe in a store window).

* {{Hypocrite}}: Stephanie calls out Tony during their lunch scene for not having any future prospects and not going to formal education (college), but the rest of the film shows that she isn't the ultra-sophisticated worker she portrays herself as. Scenes both before and after this show her mispronouncing words ("didn't take no college" / her mispronounciation of "vivacious"), her claims that she's a bigshot in New York belie the fact that she's only working an entry-level position, and for all her airs, her comments and current situation suggests that she did (or does) allow men to take advantage of her in exchange for favors or connections, to the point that Tony calls her out on this.

* {{Irony}}: Tony's friends, and a lot of the general crowd of his favorite nightclub, display ''lot'' of ignorant prejudice, but none of them seem to have any problem dancing to songs by African-American, LGBT, etc musicians.

* [[JewishMother Italian Mother]]: Tony's mother, always nagging and criticizing him, and doting on Her Son, The Priest (Tony's older brother Frank) [[spoiler:who ends up leaving the priesthood for unknown reasons and becoming estranged from his family.]]

* KickTheDog:
** Tony ignoring Annette's protests when she is gang-raped by Joey and Double J while high and intoxicated. After the worst is over, he insults and blames her, saying how she had the rapes coming, causing her to run off crying.

* MeaningfulAppearance: The movie opens with a close-up of Tony's shoes. As he struts down the street, he compares his shoes to a store model's and is satisfied that they're similar.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Tony strutting down the street... oh, yeah.

* NobodyTouchesTheHair: Tony!
* OneOfTheKids: Again, Tony.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Despite his being a JerkAss and having just tried to force himself on Stephanie earlier, even Tony is disgusted when he learns that Joey J and Bobby plan on "taking turns" with the drug addled Annette.

* [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll Sex, Drugs, and Disco]]

* ShoutOut: "[[Creator/AlPacino AL PACINO! AL PACINO!]] [[Film/DogDayAfternoon ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!]]"

* TallDarkAndHandsome: Young John Travolta as Tony Manero.

* [[ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld There Are Two Kinds of Girls in the World]]: Tony's philosophy is that a girl can either be a [[MyGirlIsNotASlut "nice girl"]] or a [[CountryMatters "cunt"]], but not both. He seems to have a case of the MadonnaWhoreComplex.
** [[DeliberateValuesDissonance He doesn't seem to be alone in that, either...]]
* UnbuiltTrope: The movie's portrayal of disco lifestyle is decidedly unsentimental and depressing enough to be labeled as a grim {{Deconstruction}} of dance flicks and nightclub culture in general. The scene to scene contrast is MoodWhiplash to a T. The twist is that this film was the '''{{Trope Maker|s}}''' of TheSeventies' Disco craze. This somewhat counts as DoNotDoThisCoolThing as Tony's life choices make him ''miserable'' but look ''amazing''. The popularity of the softened TV edit (which, in a tweaked form, was even released in theaters) plays a role as well as the nostalgia filter. The fact that the sequel ''Staying Alive'' is LighterAndSofter (to the point that it went out with a PG rather than an R) may or may not be a factor, with people mentally conflating the two movies.

* WhatTheHellHero: Stephanie and Tony's friends didn't take too kindly to Tony [[spoiler:handing over the first-place dance contest trophy to the Puerto Rican couple who took second. From the audience point of view, though, they're in the wrong and he's in the right, so it counts as CharacterDevelopment]].
** Tony gives these to his friends when he sees that they're going to take advantage of a intoxicated Annette via gang-rape. He tries to stop them but they tell him to back off.

* TheKingOfDance: Tony. By day, he's a normal youth that goes to work but by night, he is the biggest celebrity in the nightclub.

* {{Bowdlerise}}: The movie was originally rated "R" in the United States, but after marketing research revealed that most people who were buying the soundtrack album were young children, the studio re-released it to theaters in a "PG" version with little to no profanity, drug use, and nudity. Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saturday_night_fever_pg_version_movie_poster.jpg a picture]] of the poster that advertised it.

* PetTheDog: Perhaps the only truly moral thing Tony does in the film is [[spoiler: give the Puerto Rican couple the first prize in the dance contest,]] realizing that the disco crowd has refused to recognize real talent in favor of racial prejudice. [[MoodWhiplash Its quickly contrasted with his worst acts of the film.]]

* AccompliceByInaction:: Tony [[spoiler: allowing his guy friends to gang-rape Annette and doing nothing to stop it. He is also unable to stop Bobby C. from falling to his demise.]]

* NiceShoes: The movie opens with a close-up of Tony's shoes. As he struts down the street, he compares his shoes to a store model's and is satisfied that they're similar.

''Saturday Night Fever'' is a 1977 film starring Creator/JohnTravolta in the role that made him a superstar.

But the film is mostly remembered for being a reflection of the Disco era at its height in New York in TheSeventies, and the UnbuiltTrope of the modern dance flick. Subsequently, the film sparked a national Disco craze that didn't die out until the onset of TheEighties. Thus, ''Saturday Night Fever'' remains a late-Seventies [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece period piece]], such as it is. Critic [[Creator/GeneSiskel Gene Siskel's]] favorite movie of all time, its influence has been felt directly and indirectly across many later films, especially in terms of the poster's [[StayingAliveDancePose iconic finger-in-the-air pose]].

A sequel titled ''Staying Alive'' was released in 1983. [[{{Sequelitis}} It didn't do as well with the critics,]] especially since director/co-writer Creator/SylvesterStallone also decided to heavily feature his brother Frank on the soundtrack. However, the original movie's adaption as a musical for the stage in 1998 became an international success, still running in various productions. Has an unofficial quasi-sequel in 2008's ''Film/TonyManero'' as well, which is about a creepily obsessed fan of the original movie.

[[caption-width-right:321:''Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive...'']]

* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Annette.

* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Annette, who pins for Tony.

* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Annette.

* VictimBlaming: Annette gets this from Tony after suffering gang-rape from Joey and Double J while high on ecstacy.

* NotSoDifferent: Stephanie and Tony realize that ''both'' of them are putting up fronts, as her pursuit of the celebrity-filled high-life has as much phoniness as Tony's dance-fueled hedonism.

* CoitusUnintteruptus: One of Tony's friends gets caught in the middle of having sex with a girl he met at a disco and they just keep on going as Tony and his friends watch.