Disco Interlude: Italy’s Saturday Night Fever Copycats
Learn about the movies, errr, inspired by Tony Manero's antics
When Saturday Night Fever was first released in Italy in 1978, it immediately generated a host of copycats—some achieving cult-like status, others having less camp/trash artistic merit. The fact that it took place in an Italian-American neighborhood with Italian-American characters created a sense of kinship for Italian viewers and media alike.
We encourage you to seek out these made-in-Italy copycats of Saturday Night Fever—though the footage is hard to come by via official and sanctioned channels, these films constitute an intriguing sidebar in our pop-cultural history. If you want to learn more about this phenomenon, we encourage you to pick up Dancing Days by Paolo Morando, which surveys the way the years 1978-79 changed Italy for good.
Disco Delirio (Disco Music Fever in some foreign countries)
Soon after the Italian release of Saturday Night Fever, Travolta/Manero lookalike contests abounded, and the barely legal Dario Bramante ended up becoming one of the most notable Travolta lookalikes.
Oscar Righini—known for localizing the dialogues in Deep Throat and writing scripts for Nazi-exploitation movies such as Le Lunghe Notti della Gestapo—decided to enlist Bramante as the main character in Disco Delirio.
The film follows Tino and Patrizia, dance champions from Milan’s Esplanade Club, set against Ralph and Ornella from Ganesh Club—Bramante plays Ralph. There’s barely any plot, as the story mainly serves to introduce the dance sequences. Sure, there are love skirmishes, especially in the Ralph/Ornella dynamic. Meanwhile, Tino decides to buy a Honda, counting on money from a photoshoot to pay it off (which, needless to say, doesn’t work out). The motorcycle becomes a sort of Chekhov’s gun because, after the final dance-off, the characters indulge in a motorcycle race, and Tino’s Honda ends up crushed against a railroad crossing barrier (Tino makes it out alive). Rumors persist about an uncut NSFW version circulating.
Good to know: It’s available on Prime under the title Disco Music Fever if you’re in the US!
American Fever
This artistic effort by Claudio De Molinis (born Claudio Giorgiutti) and Luigi Montefiori—aka “George Eastman” in his genre-specific work (mainly horror and porn)—stars an actor named Mircha Carven, who falsely claims to be Clark Gable’s son as a marketing gimmick. He plays Tony, a mechanic who works his shift in full Saturday Night Fever suiting and regalia while also indulging in a Rocky Balboa-approved lifestyle (slurping raw eggs). He dances to the song “One Two Three Four Gimme Some More.” Carven dreams of a musical theater career but instead ends up on a porn set for Emmanuelle ’78.
Baila Guapa