Word: manero
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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There is a whole future in that ellipsis, which does not take away an inch from Travolta's interpretive skills. A closer look at Fever will reveal both an actor who works his tail off and a man with a sharp eye for stage business. As Tony Manero, he strides down that block of Bay Ridge swinging a can of paint like a talisman, and when he stops for a snack at the corner pizza stand he orders two slices, then eats them one piled right on top of the other...
...with his ideal dance partner, he provokes an admiring question ("Did you make that step up yourself?") and a neat reply: "Yeah . . . No. I saw it on television . . . then I made it up." The modification, and the contradiction, were Travolta's invention, and they say a lot about Tony Manero's stubborn pride and restless insecurity...
Travolta plays Tony Manero, king of the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn disco scene. From the opening shot, a sweeping glance of Bay Ridge streets complete with pizzerias, neighborhood stores and the F train rumbling overhead, we know Tony is in control of his environment. In the background float the strains of "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gees, who wrote and performed the movie's score. Tony works in a paint store, a job that proves singularly unpromising. But he really lives for Saturday night, when he and his friends hit the 2001: Odyssey discotheque...
...friends walk in, the crowd parts. People's heads begin turning, just like a "My broker is E.F. Hutton..." commercial set to music. Beautiful women come to Tony's table to ask him to dance, or to be allowed to wipe off his sweaty forehead. And Manero can really dance...
...movie were only the dancing, interspersed with a few shots of Tony Manero at work or at home, it would fail miserably. Luckily, the film goes much deeper than that. The central dynamic in the film is the increasing tension between Tony and his Bay Ridge world. Tony is growing up, moving apart from this Italian ghetto. And that growth is immeasurably accelerated by Stephanie Mangano (Karen Lynn Gorney), another Bay Ridge dancer whom Tony meets at the 2001 and with whom he inevitably falls in love. Stephanie looks down on Tony and his neighborhood because she works...