The music! The dancing! The garments! The hair! (Watch the hair!) Celebrating virtually 50 years of the enduring “Saturday Evening Fever,” Margo Donohue’s upcoming e book “FEVER: The Full Historical past of ‘Saturday Evening Fever’” is the first-ever full historical past contains unique interviews, uncommon pictures, behind-the-scenes tales, and brand-new insights into the cult-hit phenomenon that’s been stayin’ alive for generations.
IndieWire shares an unique excerpt from Donohue’s e book under, chronicling the musical chairs behind the movie‘s administrators, each unique and eventual. The e book might be launched by Kensington Books on Tuesday, August 26.
With the screenplay being taken care of by Norman Wexler, producer Robert Stigwood employed John Guilbert Avildsen (professionally often known as John G. Avildsen) to direct the movie. Born in 1935 in Oak Park, Illinois, Avildsen’s father labored as a mechanic and spent his downtime making films along with his 16mm Bell & Howell Filmo digicam. His English mom was an actor from Liverpool who taught Avildsen the significance of being attentive to the viewers.
Working at an advert company (with Wexler for a time) within the early Sixties, Avildsen made industrial movies for shoppers as numerous as IBM and Jeep, studying to direct and edit his work rapidly. This grew to become his “movie college” and his first footage have been “nudies” or “sexploitation” with titles like “Activate to Love” and “Guess What We Discovered in College As we speak.” They have been tacky however he gained sufficient expertise to work for Cannon Movies and produce his playwright good friend for the trip.
Regardless of being solely 5”5”, Avildsen on set radiated confidence and self-assurance. Some actors cherished this, equivalent to Jack Lemmon, who particularly requested Avildsen to direct him in 1973’s “Save the Tiger,” which gained him his first performing Oscar since 1955’s “Mister Roberts.” In his profession, he’ll direct seven actors for Academy Award nominations together with Lemmon, Frank Gilford, Burgess Meredith, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Pat Morita, and Burt Younger.
Avildsen was fired from a number of tasks in his life, which frequently occurs throughout the preliminary set-up of movies as folks wind up with differing agendas. For instance, with 1973’s “Serpico,” based mostly on the lifetime of real-life whistleblower detective Frank Serpico who fled the nation after exposing the nefarious deeds of a number of New York Metropolis cops. Whereas the 2 grew to become buddies and Norman Wexler was employed to jot down the screenplay (his second Academy Award nomination) Avildsen balked at hiring producer Martin Bregman’s girlfriend Cornelia Sharpe within the position of Serpico’s girlfriend. He was let go and Sidney Lumet wound up directing.
His most well-known work in 1976, when he signed as much as direct “Saturday Evening Fever,” was “Rocky.” Created by and starring Sylvester Stallone, the 2 have been at loggerheads all through the manufacturing. Stallone (a conservative) noticed Rocky as a younger man working exhausting to realize his objectives and liberal Avildsen noticed it as a boxer preventing the institution. With a $1 million price range, they went to shoot on location in Philadelphia on a twenty-eight-day shoot with a nonunion crew. Burgess Meredith performs Rocky’s coach Mickey and Burt Younger as Talia Shire’s (Adrian) brother Paulie. All would get performing nominations for a number of awards, however the massive one was the 1977 Academy Award for Finest Image.
In the meantime, government producer Kevin McCormick was met with many rejections purchasing round Nik Cohn’s New York journal article “Tribal Rights of a New Saturday Evening” to movie studios which Stigwood purchased particularly for John Travolta as a part of a three-picture/$1 million cope with the 23-year-old sitcom actor who had goals of film stardom.
As he pitched brokers and studios in Los Angeles when trying to find a director, McCormick remembers listening to, “’Hear, child. My shoppers do films; they don’t do journal articles.’ And I actually booked my passage again to New York the subsequent day and thought, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”
Then his luck modified. “After which the cellphone rang, and it was this man. ‘You’re in luck. The man you wished to get to was in my workplace right now, and he learn the article, and he’s considering a gathering, however you must see his new film first. John will arrange a screening for you all in New York,’” McCormick instructed me.
“So, we noticed ‘Rocky’ and employed John Avildsen earlier than that movie even opened. After which our film was developed, and Avildsen wished to be the director, DP (director of pictures), and editor as properly. I imply, he actually wished to have a number of credit,” he remembers.
Having a sense “Rocky” could be an enormous hit, Stigwood at first catered to his new director’s concepts for script adjustments. Though he and Wexler have been shut buddies, Avildsen was not above taking up the screenwriting along with his personal model, which made the lead character of Tony Manero as extra of a pleasant man. The type of one that helps previous women with their groceries and warns youngsters in regards to the risks of medicine. Stigwood chafed at making something lower than a gritty movie.
His first assembly with Travolta over breakfast on the Beverly Hills Lodge was the primary stage of failure in his tenure as director. He appeared down on the TV star and thought he had no intercourse attraction. He insisted that Travolta practice with Jimmy Gambina, the boxing knowledgeable who had a task in “Rocky” (Mike) and helped arrange the boxing sequences. This may assist him lose the “child fats” and they’re going to fear in regards to the dancing later. The star wished to discover the script extra significantly, however the director was adamant it will change to have a extra constructive outlook.
Then, after formally firing Norman Wexler, he began giving new pages to McCormick, who then handed them alongside to Stigwood. He remembers, “Avildsen was, going by means of a revolving door with writers, and the script was getting worse each time. And the very last thing he gave me within the new script, ‘I’ve been desirous about the Bee Gee’s music. I simply assume they’re over. You need one thing extra modern.’ So, Stigwood referred to as, and he stated meet me on the airport tomorrow. So, I did, and I gave him the script.”
Stigwood was livid about Avildsen’s adjustments and instructed McCormick to arrange a gathering at Stigwood’s Central Park West penthouse for ten the subsequent morning, February 10, 1977. The chief producer remembers, “John and I have been, like, twiddling our thumbs in the lounge. Stigwood got here in and he stated, ‘John, good to see you. There’s excellent news and dangerous information. The excellent news is you have got simply been nominated for an Academy Award, and the dangerous information is you might be fired.’ And that was the quickest assembly I’ve ever been in.”
Within the documentary, Avildsen blames his firing on the very fact he was caught courting the “producer’s boyfriend’s girlfriend.” Wexler instructed the Los Angeles Instances on June 12, 1977, “Avildsen was transferring in a Capra-‘Rocky’ route, all concerned in sweetness and light-weight.” The consensus is he was fired for wanting to alter to movie in a route that Stigwood and Travolta hated. Wexler was introduced again as screenwriter and McCormick had the duty of discovering a brand new director with three weeks left earlier than manufacturing was set to start.
Thirty-eight-year-old John Badham had an uncommon background. He was a self-proclaimed “Military brat” who was raised in England and Birmingham, Alabama with a mom who starred in native TV exhibits and a stepfather who was a retired Military normal. With a scholarship to Yale, he labored on a number of musical productions as a stage supervisor and actor. It was in school when he first noticed Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” that made him take into account working in tv and movie.
Throughout his junior 12 months, his nine-year-old sister Mary was solid as Scout in 1962’s adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Primarily based on the Pulitzer Prize 1960 novel by Harper Lee, the movie starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Robert DuVall in his movie debut as Boo Radley. Mary was nominated for an Academy Award, which gave her barely jealous brother the urge to succeed on his personal.
His resume was filled with tv from “Evening Gallery,” “The Streets of San Francisco,” to 1974’s “The Legislation” with Judd Hirsch and Bonnie Franklin which gained him a Primetime Emmy for Excellent Particular. In 1976, he directed his first characteristic “The Bingo Lengthy Travelling All-Stars & Motor Kings” starring Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, and James Earl Jones. The story takes place within the Thirties and is a fictional story about Negro League Baseball. It was scheduled for launch in the summertime of 1977.
Within the meantime, he had been picked to direct the musical model of “The Wiz” with Diana Ross because the star. The hit Broadway present was an city remake of “The Wizard of Oz” with Ross starring as Dorothy. Badham couldn’t work out learn how to movie Ross (34 on the time) as a younger lady and, feeling in poor health geared up to work round this conundrum, determined to get himself fired by providing a weird concept. In a manufacturing assembly he mentioned taking pictures your entire movie from Ross’ perspective. “We by no means see her — solely her footwear, sometimes.” He was booted straight away.
In February 1977, Badham was unemployed, separated from his spouse, and struggling the worst flu of his life when his agent referred to as him a couple of new job. He had examine Avildsen’s firing in Liz Smith’s column and puzzled what was occurring with the mission now referred to as “Saturday Evening.”
He instructed me, “My agent stated, now don’t learn it till I make a deal on this. So, in fact, being the type of individual that does the other of what your mom tells you, I promptly began to learn it. An hour later, at any time when I completed it, I used to be cured. My temperature was regular. I’m going round beaming, that is nice. Oh, boy.”
He was employed instantly and, after a tense first breakfast assembly with Travolta, he assured him the movie could be the imaginative and prescient all of them assume is greatest. That it will likely be sensible, gritty, and closely characteristic Travolta’s dancing, which he spent months engaged on. Travolta was desperate to know the standing of the feminine lead. Amy Irving and Jessica Lange have been not too long ago in consideration however different commitments (primarily Dino DeLaurentis, who picked Lange for the 1976 remake “King Kong” and wouldn’t let her out of her contract) and lack of chemistry with the meticulous star made it tough to seek out the proper Stephanie.
He additionally wanted to rent the remainder of the solid (solely Travolta was locked in), finalize over sixty places for taking pictures (together with the nightclub), rent a choreographer, after which there was the Bee Gees half. When first assembly Stigwood, he handed him a cassette tape telling Badham, “There are three primary songs right here.” It was an early demo of the Gibb brothers’ heavy soundtrack and Stigwood was mistaken. There could be 4 primary songs on it.
Badham rapidly flew to New York and his first indication on what a low price range movie seems like — he was picked up by manufacturing supervisor Michael Hausman at LaGuardia Airport. In keeping with Hausman, “In these days, you could possibly really drive to LaGuardia Airport and park your automotive proper on the curb and go to the gate to satisfy any person. John Badham got here out of the aircraft, and I launched myself.”
“We get to my automotive, which was a truck. It had a seat within the entrance and the again was a pickup. In entrance of my pickup was a limousine. And he began strolling in direction of the limousine. And, I stated, no, John. Here’s a rubbish bag that we’re gonna put your suitcase in, put it behind the truck, and I’m gonna drive you to the resort. And for a few years now, at any time when he talked about making that film, he stated, that was Mike’s manner of telling me who’s in cost and what it’s gonna be like,” he remembers with amusing.
From “FEVER: The Full Historical past of ‘Saturday Evening Fever,’” by Margo Donohue. Reprinted with permission from Kensington Books. Copyright 2025.
IndieWire’s ’70’s Week is introduced by Bleecker Avenue’s “RELAY.” Riz Ahmed performs a world class “fixer” who makes a speciality of brokering profitable payoffs between corrupt firms and the people who threaten their damage. IndieWire calls “RELAY” “sharp, enjoyable, and neatly entertaining from its first scene to its remaining twist, ‘RELAY’ is a contemporary paranoid thriller that harkens again to the style’s ’70s heyday.” From director David Mackenzie (“Hell or Excessive Water”) and likewise starring Lily James, in theaters August 22.