Issue #165

John Travolta: The Early Years (1975-1993)

Hello, and welcome back to the newsletter! I’ve spent much of the past month tossing and turning in my sleep, fretting about whether or not you, my beloved readers, would be able to make it through your week without the gentle emotional boost provided by this usually-weekly newsletter.

“You took a month off? Huh. I didn’t notice.”

Your graciousness in the wake of this profoundly difficult period is admirable. Thank you.

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Hmm, this newsletter has gotten a little rusty in my absence, hang on, let me apply a little Grease. There we go. Well, it’s not Perfect, but at least it’s Stayin’ Alive.

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For reasons that become increasingly mysterious in hindsight, Rebekah and I recently decided that we were going to attempt to chronologically travel through the filmography of John Travolta. We’re not quite taking a complete trip — certain movies are not available to rent digitally or purchase cheaply at the moment, so we’re bypassing those and simply watching trailers, clips, and/or Siskel & Ebert reviews, to get a sense of them. In this newsletter, I humbly submit an account of our journey to date, covering the early, pre-Pulp Fiction years of Mr. Travolta’s filmography.

The Devil’s Rain (1975): Here’s a cheap, meandering Satanic Panic thriller with a wildly overqualified cast: William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine, Ida Lupino, Tom Skerritt, Keenan Wynn, and, er, Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey (who serves as a technical advisor on the movie, despite the fact that the film’s messaging is firmly anti-Satanism). Travolta makes a small, forgettable appearance, and half of his oh-so-handsome young face is covered by prosthetics. The film plods along portentously, until reaching an extremely goopy climax in which hundreds of faces melt off. However, it’s noteworthy for being Travolta’s first big-screen appearance, and for being a movie that prompted him to seek out spiritual guidance from Scientology. If only he hadn’t made this bad movie, we might have been spared Battlefield Earth.

Rating: 4/10

Carrie (1976): Travolta gets a meatier part here, playing the chief bully at Carrie White’s school. It’s an interesting example of the actor playing against type the very minute he became famous: Welcome Back, Kotter depicted him as a charming, likable meathead, and Carrie serves him up as an arrogant, cruel-minded meathead. He’s quite effective, though it isn’t his movie. The film ranks as one of the strongest efforts of Brian De Palma’s early years, with the chilly psychological insight of Stephen King’s source material beautifully preserved within, and enhanced by, the operatic grandeur of De Palma’s direction. When he kicks into stylistic overdrive in the film’s second half, it’s easy to overlook what a fine job he does of remaining emotionally attentive to his characters. The infamous climax is visually striking, but the underlying sadness is what makes it sing. One of the great horror films of the 1970s.

Rating: 9/10

Saturday Night Fever (1977): Here’s Travolta’s first proper leading role, and what an impression he makes. He’s undeniably magnetic — a real-deal movie star — as the disco-obsessed Tony Manero, a deeply troubled young man who temporarily becomes a king when he steps onto the dance floor. The cultural memory of this film and the reality of it have such a strange disconnect: consider the recent Capital One commercial, in which Travolta recreates his famous early-film strut while The Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” accompanies him. That’s the cultural footprint of Saturday Night Fever in miniature, a cool star and cool songs. However, the scenes of energy and joy in the actual movie are brief, desperate moments of escape from what is otherwise a profoundly dark and depressing story: a young man reaching for the stars as he circles the drain. And even those moments of vibrancy essentially disappear after the film’s first half. An effectively bleak drama accompanied by some of the biggest hit songs of the 1970s.

Rating: 8/10

Grease (1978): Y’know, it’s Grease. On the one hand, I have no choice but to admire its craftsmanship, its catchy songs, its dazzling dance choreography, its unstoppable energy, and its understanding of how to make good use of Travolta’s screen presence. On the other hand, when you’re in the wrong mood for Grease — when you’re not quite patient enough for its shrill, hyperactive fusion of unbridled teenage lust, unpersuasive romance, and oddly disco-tinged 1950s fetishism — it’s quite possibly the most annoying movie ever made. Every time I have seen it, I’ve been in the wrong mood for it. So, I dunno. If you enjoy it, I’m glad you enjoy it.

Rating: 6/10

Urban Cowboy (1980): This forms the final installment of an unofficial trilogy of wildly popular Travolta movies largely defined by wildly popular soundtracks. Here, the music is basically country-pop (“Lookin’ for Love,” “Could I Have This Dance,” Mickey Gilley’s cover of “Stand By Me,” etc.), accompanying a plot that is simultaneously strange (a rom-com set in the bizarre subculture of mechanical bull-riding) and loaded with cliches. There isn’t a single beat you won’t see coming well in advance, but it kind of works, in large part due to the presence of Debra Winger, who announces herself as a movie star here just as clearly as Travolta did in Saturday Night Fever.

Rating: 7/10

Blow Out (1981): All of Travolta’s previous star vehicles felt like exactly that: vehicles for his stardom. Here, he essentially allows himself to be a tool in what is fundamentally a director’s movie. That director is his Carrie collaborator Brian De Palma, who here weaves a hypnotizing tale about a movie sound designer (Travolta) who accidentally stumbles into a political conspiracy when he saves the life of a prostitute (Nancy Allen) who had been hired to help frame a U.S. Senator. The film represents De Palma at the absolute peak of his talent, and the film’s final fifteen minutes or so are perhaps the most effective fusion of imagery and music (provided by regular De Palma collaborator Pino Donaggio) of the director’s entire career. It’s a gripping thriller that ultimately reveals itself as a pained, cynical howl of rage. Travolta, tamping down his natural charisma and digging into the part, turns in one of his strongest and most focused performances. His final moment — “It’s a good scream” — is haunting. A masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10

Staying Alive (1983): Many people recall Pulp Fiction as the movie that brought John Travolta’s career back from the dead. That career death begins right here, with this incredibly vapid, misguided sequel to Saturday Night Fever. Directed by Sylvester Stallone, the film wipes away all of the hard edges of its predecessor and turns in what amounts to barely more than a feature-length music video. Worse, even the music isn’t good: the disco classics that littered the original film have been replaced by forgettable party rock from Frank Stallone, along with a handful of new Bee Gees tunes that feel like disposable B-sides. And without good direction, even Travolta is shockingly terrible: the character he’s playing here may have the same name as the guy he played in Saturday Night Favor, but it feels more like a clunky impersonation. The film’s romantic storyline is so tossed-off and unconvincing that at the film’s conclusion, Travolta abandons his love interest entirely in order to do a self-aware strut for what is presumed to be a wildly appreciative audience. It’s rare to find a sequel that misunderstands its predecessor quite as fully as this one. Atrocious, albeit sort of fascinating as a collection of unbelievably bad creative choices.

Rating: 2/10

Perfect (1985): Travolta reunited with Urban Cowboy helmer James Bridges for a film that is perhaps best described as… exerciseploitation. In long, leering, feverish montages, the camera affectionately ogles John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis as they engage in endless rounds of hot, sweaty exercise. It’s absurd, but the actors are so committed to the assignment that it becomes kind of oddly entertaining. Alas, the rest of the movie is basically a drag, alternating between scenes that extol the virtues of Rolling Stone magazine (with Rolling Stone Co-founder Jann Wenner essentially playing a version of himself, unpersuasively) and a weirdly bland espionage subplot that seems to belong to another film entirely. This might have been cornball fun as a 90-minute lark, but at two hours it wears out its welcome long before the credits roll.

Rating: 4/10

The Experts (1989): Travolta went on an extended hiatus after Perfect, and returned in underwhelming fashion with this Spies Like Us-ish comedy about two young American goofballs (Travolta and Arye Gross) who get kidnapped by Russians and are thrown into the middle of a 1950s-style fake town in which Russian spies are attempting to learn how to act like Americans. It’s a convoluted set-up, and the jokes just aren’t there to sustain it. The best thing that film has going for it is that it’s generally agreeable, so the time you spend watching it is painless enough. It’s now perhaps most noteworthy as the movie where Travolta met his future wife Kelly Preston.

Rating: 4/10

Look Who’s Talking (1990): Writer/director Amy Heckerling came up with the idea for this movie when she was pregnant, and found herself making little wisecracks on behalf of her unborn baby. Thus, audiences were treated to a movie in which a Bruce Willis-voiced fetus that looks like one of the Being John Malkovich puppets makes jokes in the vein of the stuff Bob Saget used to do on America’s Funniest Home Videos. This material was the main draw of the movie, but I found the more standard-issue relationship drama between Travolta and Kirstie Alley a good deal easier to take. That stuff is pleasant enough, and the two have an easy chemistry together even during scenes that feel hokey or forced. But who is this movie for, exactly? Tonally, it feels aimed at young children, but is full of jokes that are probably a bit too crude for youngsters (the opening sequence involves some locker room banter between a group of animated sperm cells). In any event, people liked it at the time, as the movie was a surprise megahit at the box office: $297 million on a $7.5 million budget.

Rating: 4/10

Look Who’s Talking Too (1990): This time there’s another talking baby, voiced by Roseanne Barr. Otherwise, it’s basically more of the same, with the tonal pitch just a touch more manic. Such is the way of comedy sequels. Travolta does a dance number in this that is technically pretty impressive, but it’s with a group of toddlers and Gilbert Gottfried keeps screaming and waving his arms in the background, so that sort of works against our leading man’s valiant efforts.

Rating: 3/10

Shout (1990): At long last, it’s time for Travolta to try his hand at the well-worn “cool teacher inspires a bunch of troubled students” genre. In this version of that story, Travolta is sent to a boys’ school in 1950s Texas, and is tasked with teaching them how to play marching band music. But what they really want to play is rock n’ roll, see, and Travolta, he just so happens to love rock n’ roll. But this uptight Texas town, it’s not a rock n’ roll town. That‘s the devil’s music! Kids should play John Philip Sousa, and like it! You get the idea. It feels like a straight-to-video Christian movie without the Christianity. It also feels like it may have been cut down in the editing room, because the 89-minute movie just ends very abruptly, as if some executive said, “Get this piece of junk below 90.”

Rating: 3/10

Look Who’s Talking Now (1993): Oof. This time, we get talking dogs. A cheerful mutt voiced by Danny DeVito, and a prim and proper poodle voiced by Diane Keaton. Somehow, all of the cheap butt-sniffing humor is actually preferable to the Travolta/Alley storyline, which involves Alley burning with jealous rage as Travolta attempts to resist the sexual advances of his attractive new employer (Lysette Anthony). There are some fights with wolves near the end, and a Christmas song performed by a five-year-old French singer named Jordy (fresh off the success of his one and only hit, “Dur Dur d’etre baby, or “It’s Hard to Be a Baby”). It’s entirely obvious that no one involved really wants to be doing this anymore, and it’s probably the least watchable movie of Travolta’s career up to this point.

Rating: 1/10

Titles we missed due to unavailability: 1978’s Moment by Moment (a poorly-reviewed romance co-starring Lily Tomlin), 1983’s Two of a Kind (a poorly-reviewed reunion between Travolta and his Grease co-star Olivia Newton-John), and 1991’s Eyes of an Angel (a mostly-forgotten straight-to-video drama). The bits and pieces I’ve seen of each do not make a good case for them.

Once we’ve watched a sufficient amount (probably a few weeks from now?), I’ll offer a rundown of Travolta’s ‘90s resurgence. Still plenty of dire items ahead, but at the very least, I am grateful to have the Look Who’s Talking series in the rearview mirror.

What else? Rebekah and I greatly enjoyed a weekend trip to Austin, Texas recently — our first kid-free getaway in ages — and I may write a bit about that in the near future.

I’ll write more about the kids soon, too, but will note for now that they are greatly enjoying their summer break thus far, while also missing the daily social interaction with friends that school offers.

I’m also still plugging along with my exploration of all things Frankenstein, and will offer an update on that in the near future as well.

Have a great week!

Back at ya later