‘Disco Italiana’: Severin Collects the Best ‘Discoploitation’

It’s hard to convey the cultural thunderclap that went off in 1977 when “Saturday Night Fever” hit theaters to anyone who wasn’t there. The gritty musical about a working class Italian-American man who finds release and salvation every weekend at his local disco was a massive commercial and critical success, creating a seismic shift in music and fashion that flamed out quickly but left a major impression.

Most importantly, “Saturday Night Fever” and another Paramount release that came out the following year, “Grease,” made John Travolta one of the biggest movie stars in the world. The 23-year old landed an Oscar nomination for his dazzling performance and became a face you couldn’t get away from — his visage was everywhere, on posters, lunchboxes, and anything else you could slap a picture on, and young (and old) men around the world tried to emulate his style. (Film critic Gene Siskel famously bought Travolta’s white disco suit an an auction.)

Travolta and “Saturday Night Fever” were so ubiquitous that they singlehandedly launched a whole subgenre of “discoploitation” movies, quickie ripoffs designed to capitalize on Travolta’s popularity. While there were several American entries in this cycle, like “Thank God It’s Friday” and “Can’t Stop the Music,” as well as the British “Music Machine,” Italy is where discoploitation really thrived. Starting with “American Fever” in 1978, Italy cranked out a short but steady stream of extremely entertaining homegrown disco films that shamelessly imitated “Saturday Night Fever” while also supplying original charms of their own.

In “American Fever,” for example, there are several direct parallels with “Saturday Night Fever,” from the working class hero named Tony (who dresses exactly like Travolta on the dance floor) and abundant ensemble dance sequences to the Al Pacino posters that anchor the set decoration. Yet there are also plenty of unique twists on the material, as Tony struggles to make it as an actor and comes up against the seamier side of the Italian film industry; the view of the movie business as a metaphor for prostitution gives “American Fever” a cynical undercurrent that lingers in the mind long after the film’s conclusion.

With its realistic edge, “American Fever” is one of the Discoploitation movies that most closely resembles “Saturday Night Fever” and comes the closest to replicating its strengths. “Grease Rock,” which came out in 1979, is much sillier — and more fun. Like the characters in virtually all of these movies, young Robbie (a deliciously hammy Monty Ray Garrison in his first and last starring role in a feature film) worships John Travolta; he even drives a custom motorcycle decorated as a tribute to “Grease,” complete with Travolta photos where the rearview mirrors should be.

Once again we have a character who escapes from his working class surroundings by frequenting the local dance club, and once again there are elements (like a disco contest on which the hero places all his hopes and dreams) lifted wholesale from “Saturday Night Fever.” What makes “Grease Rock” special, aside from the clever conceit of stealing iconography from not only “Saturday Night Fever” but “Grease,” is the sheer exuberance of the disco set pieces. The dancing is truly impressive, and the pleasure the performers take in it is infectious.

The obsession with John Travolta reaches its peak — or, depending on your perspective, nadir — in 1979’s “The Face With Two Left Feet,” a movie whose marketing materials promoted someone named “John Travolto” as the star. Travolto is in fact Giuseppe Spezia, an actor who looks so much like Travolta that it’s kind of unsettling, and the entire film is built around the resemblance. Spezia plays a nerdy guy whose friends give him a makeover so that he can convince the object of his desire, as well as all the cool patrons at the local disco, that he actually is John Travolta; “The Face With Two Left Feet” thus becomes a kind of commentary on itself and all the other “Saturday Night Fever” imitations. It doesn’t really work as a movie, but it’s a fascinating curiosity.

“American Fever,” “Grease Rock,” and “The Face With Two Left Feet” never got much, if any, distribution in the U.S., but now they’ve been collected in “Disco Italiana,” an incredible Blu-ray boxed set from Severin that loads the movies up with extra features and presents them in beautiful new transfers taken from the original negatives. None of these movies were ever released on DVD, even in Italy (where they’ve been more or less forgotten), which makes Severin’s archival excavation all the more valuable; one can only imagine the amount of technical and legal work that went into making this set happen, but it was well worth it in terms of the contribution to film history and scholarship.

Separately, Severin has also released a new Blu-ray of “Music Machine” (1979), which infuses the “Saturday Night Fever” template with British sociopolitical concerns and a great use of London settings. That’s one of the most interesting things about all of these movies — since they all have essentially the same narrative structure, the variations provide compelling glimpses at the cultural concerns and urban landscapes featured in each particular film. To watch the Severin discs is to be reminded of just how many cinematic discoveries remain out there waiting to be unearthed — and of how essential their work and the work of other boutique physical media labels continues to be.

“Disco Italiana” and “Music Machine” are now available on Severin’s website.