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 loo…