STAYING ALIVE: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Paramount, 1983) Kino Lorber

Few movie sequels are as grotesquely misguided or as inanely silly as Staying Alive, the 1983 follow-up to 1977’s mega blockbuster, Saturday Night Fever. Setting aside the show-within-a-show to which all aspire according to this plot – Broadway’s Satan’s Alley - is a noisy and nightmarish claptrap no one would wish, much less pay, to see; taut flesh writhing in agony (…or is it ecstasy? – difficult to tell from Dennon and Sayhber Rawles abysmal choreography) - benign, yet messy - Nick McLean’s frenetic cinematography, further Ginsu-ed by editors, Peter E. Berger, Mark Warner, Don Zimmerman, and given a rather venomous double entendre by our female antagonist, Laura (soap opera fav, Finola Hughes) who comes off as a petulant tease and total shrew, and Staying Alive is already mired in the quicksand of dreck that once passed for artistic expression in the early 1980’s. Re-hiring ‘Fever’s magnetic star, John Travolta, to reprise his role as Tony Manero, that irrepressibly ego-driven wannabe dancer, was also not altogether a solid choice, as the 70’s – and more importantly, the disco craze to have so completely hit its stride in the aforementioned ‘pop’ time capsule - were officially dead by the time Staying Alive went before the cameras.

Undaunted, producers also brought back the Bee Gees, whose falsetto-pitched, mellower vibes of the previous decade proved irreconcilably puerile with the harder ‘manufactured’ sound of early 80’s pop/rock. Add to this, Travolta’s screen image had severely slipped in the public’s estimation after the colossal thud of 1978’s Moment to Moment, despite the actor’s good showing in two subsequent pics – 1980’s Urban Cowboy, and 1981’s De Palma thriller, Blow Out. But the real/reel fate of Staying Alive, as a badly conceived, brutally dumb, and, thoroughly unremarkable footnote for all involved, was very likely sealed by producer, Robert Stigwood’s executive decision to hand over directorial, screenwriting and partial producing duties to Sylvester Stallone (who makes a Hitchcock-esque cameo, passing the fictional Manero on a crowded New York sidewalk) but whose utter lack of skill in any of the aforementioned appointments was a lethal one/two knockout punch not even a Rocky Balboa could sustain, and, from which this movie’s reputation never recovers. Staying Alive is an incompetent mess. Yet, unlike some other gargantuan misfires from the period – most notably, 1980’s Can’t Stop The Music – it has not morphed into vintage camp of the ‘so bad, it’s good’ ilk.     

Given – again – the ‘then’ new ‘body beautiful’ renaissance kickstarted by the runaway success of 1977’s Pumping Iron and rising status of its lionized pro-bodybuilder, Arnold Schwarzenegger (and the steroidal fallout, already to have rubbed off on Stallone (heavily invested in muscling up for Rocky and Rambo sequels), the director put Travolta on an aggressive crash course workout regiment to tighten up his otherwise indistinguishably lanky frame. Alas, for Travolta, the added girth did not equate to renewed interest in his screen presence as a sex symbol. Nor did pouring him back into that iconic white polyester suit from Saturday Night Fever, ever-so-slightly redressed herein with a form-fitted powder blue V-neck a la the soon to be popularized glacial cool inflicted upon men’s style by Don Johnson on TV’s Miami Vice (1984-89), have any great impact herein.   If anything, Staying Alive strives – rather badly – to infer Manero’s brains are in his biceps, making him an even bigger dumbbell than the one, audiences ostensibly fell in love with in the original movie. Worse for Travolta, the dialogue co-authored by Stallone and Norman Wexler leaves Manero with little beyond cheap quips to thrill his adoring fans, while the plot almost immediately devolved into the sort of tripe and drivel generally ascribed a daytime soap opera. The third wheel, Cynthia Rhodes, as Tony’s casual love interest, Jackie (a dead ringer for Karen Lynn Gorney’s Stephanie from Saturday Night Fever) is the long-suffering Sweet Polly Purebred here. Manero owes Jackie everything, and yet, repeatedly ditches her to stroke his own ego, or presumably, have it and other appendages equally massaged to his satisfaction by Laura.

Apart from Julie Bovasso’s welcomed – if very brief – return as Tony’s tolerant mama, casting here is just awful. The aforementioned Rhodes, multi-talented, who sings three indistinguishable songs with Stallone’s brother, Frank, and barely gets a solo – ‘Finding Out The Hard Way’ (meant as a meaningful revelation about the future of her waning hopefulness to be Tony’s girl) is otherwise utterly wasted as Jackie – a role that merely requires Rhodes to sob on cue for a guy unworthy of her love. Charles Ward as Butler, Satan’s Alley’s effete lead dancer, supposedly miffed when Tony usurps him in the show, is given little to do except smirk and simper. Steve Inwood’s Jesse, the director of this show-within-a-show, who may or may not hope to get into Laura’s panties, is far too gruff, grim and gauche to fit into this ‘artist’s sect.  The picture’s main titles, an absolute steal of Bob Fosse’s more magnetic opener from All That Jazz (1979), has Broadway hopefuls, along with Manero and Jackie, auditioning for another show neither one of them lands. However, unlike Fosse’s original staging, to illustrate the passion as well as the playfulness and hard work gone into a dancer’s acumen, the hard bodies feverishly leaping about here, occasionally caught in a sweat-soaked freeze frame, appear belligerent, angry and resentful, not only of their chosen profession, but the idea their fate rests under the critical eye of a potential ballet master (a woefully miscast, Kurtwood Smith in the Roy Scheider part from Fosse’s infinitely superior flick).

We meet Tony Manero who on the advice of his brother, has moved to Manhattan to become a professional dancer. Alas, things have not exactly panned out for Tony. He resides in a seedy Manhattan flophouse, works as a part-time dance instructor, and waits tables at a noisy nightclub. This barely covers the rent. The one bright spot for Tony is his on again/off again affair/friendship with Jackie – so good, in fact, Tony cannot see the proverbial forest for its trees. Having broken from his former Brooklyn haunts, accent and routines, Tony is a little less crude and unvarnished now. He also has bigger hair – a distinct nod to the eighties. Eschewing an invitation for some rough trade/after-hours sex, though otherwise inferring to have earlier partook of this hardcore scene without enjoying it, Tony is still, and rather sadly, a bastard at heart. No lessons learned there. So, when the opportunity to bang Laura, the uber-tight-lipped/tight-assed star of another Broadway show presents itself, Tony wastes no time plying the uppity Brit with his ‘particular brand’ of tactless ‘charm.’ It does not wash with the pretense of sophistication Laura has concocted for herself. Her surface sheen is cool class. But her underbelly is misdirected bitch-laden, butched-up feminism gone bonkers.  

Neither blind nor foolish, Jackie attempts damage control by forewarning Tony that Laura is a well-off ice princess who dances because she can, not from hunger. She will eat him alive and spit him out when it suits her fickle heart. Moreover, Tony will never fit into Laura’s Park Avenue lifestyle. Never to be dissuaded from a sexual conquest, Tony’s utterly disastrous ‘cute meet’ with Laura, segues into a very brief montage of highlights from their burgeoning ‘relationship,’ to dissolve with Tony naked and ridden hard inside the spider’s lair, an impossibly oversized boudoir. Pulling a reverse Andrew Dice Clay, Laura’s post-coital modus operandi includes a polite discounting of Tony’s bedroom prowess (it’s “nice” as she puts it) and then an even more direct request, he slip back into his BVD’s and out of her apartment before her doorman is any the wiser, so she can rest up for tomorrow’s rehearsals. Still naïve, this tryst marks the beginning and the end of all Laura is willing to offer him, Tony continues to repeatedly piss on Jackie’s ever-present devotion to him in the hopes of getting back into Laura’s good graces.

Recognizing – and even more curiously, ‘respecting’ Tony’s passion to be the lead in Satan’s Alley, and, also, quite aware the current male dancer ascribed the part – Butler – isn’t working out, Jackie (also in the show) agrees to hone Tony’s skills and routine to allow him to effectively step into the role, much to Butler and Laura’s chagrin. The show’s director, Jesse, is invigorated by the antagonistic byplay between Laura and Tony as it suits the palpably erotic charge of that show’s weird and aggressive dance routines. On opening night, Tony tosses Laura around the stage like a rag doll, the pair groping and grunting in all their sweat- scorched contempt for each other, to culminate with Laura scratching Tony near his eye after he departs from the script to plant an angry kiss on her lips. As the pair move into the big finale, Jesse forewarns Tony’s ambitions to wreck Laura have gone too far. But in the last analysis, it earns Tony, Laura’s brief and very fickle esteem. She leaps into his arms and is hoisted overhead, bringing the audience to their feet in hearty applause. Afterward, Tony rushes to Jackie. However, when she inquires what he would prefer to do to mark his triumphant Broadway debut, Tony reverts to his ego-driven self, declaring he would rather ‘strut’ alone than paint the town with her. We end with a solitary Tony working the Bee Gee’s title track (a hold over from Saturday Night Fever, and the only memorable tune in the program) with an eventual freeze frame on the bright lights of Broadway.

Staying Alive is a comatose entertainment, dead on arrival because it somehow wishes to rival its predecessor, but quickly discovers the very best hope is to keep its artistic ambitions in check with the commercial crassness of crafting a sequel to remain above the waterline at the box office. This, it achieved, earning a whopping $127 million on a $22 million budget. Today, however, there are few who would suggest any lasting resemblance between Staying Alive and Saturday Night Fever. Commercially successful, though critically panned, Staying Alive lacks the gritty backstory of a guy from the wrong side of the tracks – hungry, desperate, yet ambitiously driven to succeed. The Tony Manero we meet here is a bored narcissist, disillusioned when his ‘grand amours’ turns into sloppy seconds with women who either slavish adore or despise him.  Twelve songs, only six penned by the Bee Gees, are wedged into barely an hour-and-a-half, leaving very little room for quality exposition. The picture has absolutely nothing to say about its central protagonist, the rigors of becoming a successful dancer, or finding true love on one’s own terms. The connective tissue in Wexler/Stallone’s screenplay, meant to get us from several musical montages to the resplendently tacky opening night are anemic at best.  The behind-the-scenes drama does not evolve. It bounces, from rehearsal stage to the bedroom, to nightclub, back to bedroom, and finally back to the stage, now redressed with contorting extras and a lot of smoke and pyrotechnic camouflage to mask all the bad taste and squandered opportunities. There is nothing in Staying Alive to recommend it to those yet to wade through its dreck and drudgery for the first time, much less to encourage repeat viewing.  

In the aftermath of this colossal miscalculation, John Travolta would see his early career aspirations as a sex symbol thoroughly unravel into such disposable nonsense as 1983’s Two of a Kind (to reunite him with Grease alumni, Olivia Newton-John, albeit with none of the spark from their earlier effort) and 1985’s Perfect (costarring Jamie Lee Curtis), before experiencing a renaissance with his departure into comedy – 1990’s Look Who’s Talking, and then, real acting in Pulp Fiction (1994). After 1985’s Rocky IV, Sylvester Stallone would hang up his director’s megaphone to concentrate on his own ‘acting’ career, returning behind the camera for Rocky Balboa (2006). Finola Hughes enjoyed a legendary run, on TV’s daytime soap, General Hospital from 1985 to 2023 while Cynthia Rhodes, after appearing in the runaway megahit, Dirty Dancing (1987), and totally forgettable Curse of the Crystal Eye (1991) gave up on her acting career to raise a family with then hubby, Richard Marx. The couple were divorced in 2014. Staying Alive remains a footnote, rather than a highlight in all these careers. It is a dull and uninspiring movie, weighted down by bad acting, an incompetently rendered screenplay and some truly cheerless and charm-free song and dance routines.

Staying Alive arrives on 4K UHD and Blu-ray via Kino Lorber’s alliance with Paramount Pictures. The image here, graded in both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision off an original 35mm negative, is thick and grain-heavy, owing to film stocks of the day; also, Nick McLean’s verve to create something dark and seedy from the trappings of Broadway. Close-ups reveal an exceptional amount of fine detail. Contrast is uniformly excellent. But the image tends to fall apart in long shots that are soft and slightly out of focus. Colors are robust, and favor flaming reds and burnt oranges. Remember, it is ‘Satan’s Alley.’ There are two audio options – a DTS 5.1 and original 2.0 DTS – neither to improve upon our appreciation of these forgettable songs. Both tracks sound quite solid otherwise, with crisp dialogue and well-integrated music and effects. David Del Valle and Ed King provide a running commentary far more amusing than the movie. This track is featured on both the 4K and Blu-ray, also included herein. Curiously, the interview with Finola Hughes only gets coverage on the standard Blu. Bottom line: Staying Alive is fatally stricken with ennui before the opening credits unfurl. For fans, this new to 4K release will be most welcome. Others can pass and continue to live in the afterglow of Saturday Night Fever.  

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

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VIDEO/AUDIO

4K UHD – 4.5

Blu-ray – 4

EXTRAS

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