My mother took me to the theater to see this movie at age 9. I danced out of my seat. Probably the worst film I can say that I love dearly. Thanks for the hilarious trip down memory lane. 🙌
My fav scene is where tony manero walks by his former dance club the 2001 Odyssey a reminder of Tony's former past .....I think tony longs to remise the old Day's of Saturday night fever 👍😁
When I lived in NYC, I used to go to many theaters that played classic films all the time. One particular week, I went to one theater to see Saturday Night Fever, and the next night I went to another theater to see Stayin' Alive. During the screening of SNF, the silence in the room was deafening. I guess a group of 20-somethings were NOT prepared for the overt racism, misogyny and homophobia (if they saw it as kids, it was probably the heavily edited PG version). Stayin' Alive, however, the patrons of the same generation could barely sit in their seats due to how much they enjoyed the dance numbers and the soundtrack. I love this movie since I love bad-good movies anyway. The real reason I love this movie is because THIS is how Stallone met Vince DiCola and eventually gave him the job to do my favorite film score to what's also my favorite movie of all time: Rocky 4. When it came time to do the music, Stallone had had a falling out with Bill Conti, and needed a new composer. When Vince first heard about it, he immediately wrote, performed and recorded the music for both the training montage and the fight montage, and immediately sent the demo tape to Sly's people. Sly listened to the songs, stood up and said "Get this man in here NOW!!!' Then when they told Sly the name of the person who made the music, Sly said "Oh, that's Vinny!! Tell him he's already got the job!!".
This movie was never as bad as people said. It only lacked the "grittiness" of the original. I think that's mostly due to trying to make Tony Minero an IP
It's the same thing that happened with LOOK WHO'S TALKING: a gritty original movie that tackled hot topics like abortion and gender relations, only to be followed up by a family friendlier sequel where John Travolta’s character only has to dance well to make his angry lover forgive him. Happens to most franchises, honestly.
It's even funnier to imagine Satan's Alley opening on Broadway today, when people would be tweeting their disapproval throughout the show, the footage of Laura getting tossed becomes a TikTok hit, and the show ends up closing up out of embarrassment before their first week was up.
The cinematography, editing, art direction, costumes, visual effects, makeup, sound, music adaptation and songs for "Staying Alive" were pretty cool. This was the highest grossing hit film of the 1983-1984 year in Paramount's history. Nominated for an Golden Globe, Grammy and Young Artist Award in 1984.
Those bad slow-motion jump cutaways are SO cringe worthy. Filmed from bad angles with the dancers jumping off trampolines. The only thing missing was bath-soap bubbles dripping off of Tony while he gyrates and emotes.
Man, I needed the giggles that this video has delivered to me today! Thank you! Sidenote: that “bar” that Cynthia Rhodes and Frank Stallone perform at is actually CBGB’s! I’ve no idea how they cleaned it up to look so nice in the film, but I stage-dived from Frank’s spot there! 😅. I tweeted Frank about filming there for this scene and he actually responded, but didn’t really go into any significant details. 😢😂
La vi en la premiere d san sebastian en España y vino john Travolta ..nunca lo olvidare incluso condegui que me firmara un autografo en el disco de grease todavia no tenia la banda sonora de STAYING ALIVE...Es una de mis peliculas favoritas y no es tan mala como dicen ni de burlarse de ella ...admito que no es una pelucula para todos gustos no ni de lejos ...es una pelicula de su epoca y ya esta ....la musuca es genial sobre todo la de los BEE GEES.... Es recordada hoy en dia sea para bien o para mal pero como dice su titulo ...sobreviviendo .... Gracias por el video ...
Also how has Travolta not been an over the top Expendables villain? His OTT Face/Off and Battlefield Earth performances are the perfect vibe for a Expendables villain IMO
RU-vid suggested this movie for free to me earlier this year. I watched it so many times they stopped suggesting and started asking to charge. It's pretty solid
Being culturally identified with bad movies, the title of the fake broadway show “Satans Alley” was borrowed for one of the fake trailers in “Tropic Thunder”.
I watched Saturday night fever for the first time in 2020, only because I was a huge sly fan at the time and I knew he directed the sequel, and I ended up loving Saturday night fever, which was my favourite film for over a year, and I enjoyed staying alive, though the main issue was the change in the Tony Manero character, as we liked him for his rude and cool attitude as it was gritty, which made it work and gave it an edge, similar to taxi driver for the time, with dancing rather than shooting. The change didn’t work for Tony Manero, it’s not what the audience wanted as it made the character soft, but I love it.
Ok, I'm 41 years old and this is how I'm finding out that Staying Alive was Saturday Night Fever sequel....I loved Staying Alive when i was little and they would show reruns on tv all the time, new SNF existed, but never watch it. This has blown my mind, and now i kinda want to wath SNF😂
If they would have added Tony as a waiter to dance in the club he was working at and then quit and when he is walking past the 2001 old disco club walk in and run into his old friends that would have helped the movie.
I don't care what people say, I frikkin love this movie and I even have the soundtrack to it. I was 7 when it came out and didn't make the connection at the time that it was a sequel to Saturday Night Fever until years later as the tone is less gritty than SNF.
I really loved this movie, it has a lot of heart, and shows how a man can escape the confines of a meaningless life of going out every weekend to nightclubs with friends who were bad influences and getting mixed up in drugs and alcohol. Tony got fed up of that life and thought that Stephanie was right about him, he was a cliche on his way to nowhere as a nobody who thinks he’s a somebody. Also apologizes to her for being a huge jerk too, and then going off on his own to Manhattan to try and use the talent he has to make something of himself, and he actually did. The dialogue in the movie is also memorable and at times hilarious too. Tony also finds a truly great woman in Jackie, who loved him and does the same thing he does, which both of them connect beautifully because of. It does suck that he falls for a cruel selfish woman who is basically everything he used to be back in the 70’’s when he was younger, and he sees just how horrible it feels to be on the opposite end of being with a person like he was, and of course how heartbroken Jackie looked when he hurt her, he then wised up and started to a better man to everyone around him, most importantly Jackie. Then he goes all out to show that he is a dancing star, by pushing himself to try out for the lead male dancer of Satan’s Alley, even if he has to dance alongside Laura the narcissistic female lead dancer that he had a bad relationship with. One of my favorite lines in the movie is between Tony and Frank Stallone having a macho standoff over Jackie. He says to Tony, who are you pal, All-State? Tony then replies, yeah, you want disability. Lmao 😂
Negative Skywalker.. 😂 I mean what's going on.. I didn't get any references .. I can say man u absolutely love this movie like we all have one friend we can't tolerate but feel board when he is not around.
The soundtrack is just as solid for 'Staying Alive' as is the one for 'Saturday Night Fever'. Is it a great flick? No. It's good in a bad/good. Call me crazy, but right now we all need a bad/good movie to help us forget this crazy world. Ps. Thanks for the laughs!
Proof that there's NO accounting for tastes. One person says: "Send this back!" Another person: "Hey, you're not gonna eat that?" I'll never understand it, but I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it.
I loved this movie. Definitely a guilty pleasure according to the critics. I actually saw this before Saturday night fever because I was too young to see Saturday night fever when it was released. I think it holds up pretty good as a standalone movie. It did lack the rawness from the original. But it's 6 years later and everyone grows up and matures
Great video and only thing missing was playing the song “Look Out For Number One” from his scene as a bartender which is burned into my mind thanks to the Cinephobe podcast.
You added "Clarence Bonnicker". You get a thumb and a sub -just- for that alone. I've been following you for years, but never added. You have my "bow down" now, my friend. Detroit City FTW!
Oh man, this review is freakin' hilarious!!! I saw this only once, & yes, it is pretty corny & bad, but in a surprisingly entertaining manner, lol. Thanks for the I Loves the 80s Strikes Back clips, & especially the dig at Taylor Swift, at the end!! I've never been a fan of hers, & would gladly watch Staying Alive over listening to any of her crap music, anyday! I did not know that Staying Alive featured, a then little known Patrick Swayze!!
My mom used to make us watch this and Saturday night fever all the time when I was a kid. Hated both movies and disco music. But that being said I think it’s better than Saturday night fever.
Staying Alive is okay for what it is, but as a continuation of Tony Manero’s story, it didn’t make much sense. In Saturday Night Fever, Tony is someone who likely barely got out of high school who goes dancing for fun. He’s good at it, but good at it in the way that someone who’s impressive at the club. In “Staying Alive,” suddenly he’s professional caliber, like he’s been studying at Juliard for 5 years. Personally, I felt that with a small rewrite, Urban Cowboy could have worked as a better sequel. As fed up with everything as Tony is at the end of SNF, I could buy him just chucking things and moving to Houston a lot more than he suddenly becomes Bob Fosse.
Staying alive, Halloween 2 (1981), Jaws 2 All of these 80’s sequels were worth sequels to their blockbuster predecessors that get hated in way too much. Do they equal the first movies? No of course not but they added to the stories and didn’t take anything from them.
It was Trendy to jump onto the knocking Travolta bandwagon at the time. He had so much success in his first two major films that the critics were just waiting for this to happen. It wasnt a brilliant film but the fact that it did well at the Box Office was always ignored and denied. It certainly didn't lose a fortune in revenue like so many sequel films do .....
It suffered in comparison to SNF, but probably fine on its own terms. I like the theme song, although it doesn't get as much action as the Bee Gees on my playlist
LOL! I loved this movie back in the day but I was a 12 year old girl with no notion of what a good film was. This was a hilarious look back. I still love that terrible soundtrack.
Patrick Swayze DOES NOT appear in this movie as an extra! What a nonsense, considering that the same year he was the lead in a series "The Renegades", a member of an ensemble cast in Coppola's "The Outsiders" and co-starred with Gene Hackman in the "Uncommon Valor".
And now you do. (I knew it existed ...and I knew it was bad ... but not this bad. But I never even HEARD any of the Bee Gees music from this thing. And I luv me some BGs.)
I am really curious as to the impact you guys have on torrents. I went to look up this movie today and I saw it had 23 seeds and 70 leeches. No way that would have been the case two days ago right?
Don’t care that it’s bad. Loved it then , love it now. Glad he tossed her snooty/crummy dancing butt across the stage. Cynthia Rhode’s legs are what, 6 feet long? And she actually CAN dance!
I recently watched the Kino Lorber 4K release of this. I was expecting it to be pure garbage based on the hate it receives and its Rotten Tomatoes score. It’s a fun, silly, light hearted 90 minute film with a great soundtrack. I had a lot of fun with it. It really surprised me. If we are looking at it with a critical eye, Saturday Night Fever is a better overall film, but for pure entertainment value, I love Staying Alive.
Staying Alive is a great movie. It's equal to Saturday Night Fever. People didn't like it because there were no curse words in it. The Acting, Dancing, Music and Choreography are great. Except for 2 things. Travolta and Rhodes haircuts were long then short. And 2 scenes Travolta acting was not good. When he's trying to talk to the Gorgeous Finola Hughes. Saying "Are you sure you can't go out tonight?" And "I came here to be with you, and Why did we ever start this thing up huh?" Other than that. Movie was great. First time I watched it I hated it bc I'm not a fan of Broadway. But after really watching it for the second time. I was blown away by everything. But I do think they should have had Stephanie Mangano in it. Because at the end of SNF. Tony said he's getting his money and moving to Manhattan like her. And asked her to stay friends. Bc Tony said his friends were liars and jerks. After the 2001 Odyssey Dance contest. When Tony realized it was rigged and acknowledged that the Spanish dancers were better. Bc One thing Tony knew about was Dancing. His Dancing in SNF was flawless. But in Staying Alive it's great to see him switch and adapt to a totally different Dance skill set. And Staying Alive is more about Tony growing into a man. And making it. Using and doing what he does best. To become famous in the Lead role of a Broadway show. Those Broadway dancers are very hard working ppl. Finola Hughes is gorgeous. She used to do that show "Cats". All in all. Staying Alive was great.
I want to ask someone who knows because that don’t look nothing like Patrick Swayze. OhRmGee-I wonder what could have been if Jules and Vincent went to his Ma’s house.
