Staying Alive (1983) on Netflix
Tony Manero teaches dance and waits tables in Manhattan while chasing a Broadway break. He pursues Laura, the lead in the show where his girlfriend Jackie dances in the chorus.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb4.8/1018,984 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes3%
Trailer
Plot summary
Five years after Saturday Night Fever, Tony Manero has left Brooklyn behind for a Manhattan flophouse. He teaches dance and waits tables at a club while hoping for a break into the modern dance shows on Broadway. The distance from his old neighborhood appears to have matured him: his Brooklyn accent has faded, he avoids alcohol and he swears less. Some attitudes hold, including his disregard for Jackie, his forgiving girlfriend, a dancer and rock singer, and his double standard of seeing other women while taking offense if she sees other men. At a show where Jackie performs in the chorus, he watches the lead, the English dancer Laura, with seduction in mind.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Staying Alive (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Having just seen Rocky III, which Sylvester Stallone wrote, directed and starred in, Travolta told his agent he wanted a director who could bring that film's energy and pacing to Staying Alive. To his surprise, Paramount, helped by then-studio chief Michael Eisner, was able to bring in Stallone himself.
- Saturday Night Fever producer and writer Robert Stigwood and Norman Wexler began planning a sequel soon after the original came out in 1977, and Wexler wrote a script, but John Travolta disliked its pessimism and thought Tony Manero needed to see more success as a dancer. Stigwood and Paramount executives spent several years failing to change his mind.
- The film opened with the biggest weekend for a musical film ever recorded at the time, taking $12,146,143 from 1,660 screens.
- Travolta built a dancer's physique for the film with five months of rigorous training under Stallone's supervision, losing 20 lb in the process.
SPOILER
Some of the Saturday Night Fever cast were filmed and then removed from the final cut: Donna Pescow appeared as Annette in the audience at Tony's Broadway debut, and Val Bisoglio's brief scene as Frank Manero Sr was deleted, leaving the film to vaguely imply that he has probably died.
