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Saturday Night Fever
A tie-in paperback to the "major motion picture from Paramount," this book features photos from the then current film on the front and back cover. It also includes a "fantastic full-color centerfold-out of John Travolta inside" as promised on the cover.
182 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1977
73 people want to read
About the author
H.B. Gilmour
66 books54 followersH. B. Gilmour was a bestselling author of children's books. She grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with her mother and the extended family and fondly remembered writing her very first poem for Arbor Day when she was just eight years old. As a teenager, she moved to Florida to live with her father. She attended college there and then moved back to New York City.
Gilmour’s first publishing job was at E.P. Dutton. In 1964 she joined Bantam Books where she worked as copywriter, editor, and copy chief and as an associate director of marketing. She was married to Bruce Gilmour in 1968. She had a child, Jessica, with him in 1970. They were divorced in 1972. Her first novel "The Trade", a trashy paperback about the publishing business, was published in 1969.
She wrote novelizations (including Saturday Night Fever) and children's books (including Muppets books) while working full-time at Bantam and raising a child on her own. She published her second original novel "So Long, Daddy" in 1985. The artwork for the dust jacket of the hardcover release includes a photo of her daughter, Jessica. Her third novel was "Ask Me If I Care", a book about a teenage girl who gets in with the wrong crowd.
In 1992 she joined the book division at Scholastic, leaving in 1995 to pursue writing full-time. She focused her energy on books for "tweens" and children which is what gave her the most joy.
She met John Johann, whom she would later marry, in 1992. They later moved to Cornwallville in upstate New York where she happily tended to the garden she never had in the city until her death. She died on June 21, 2009 of pneumonia due to complications from lung cancer. She is survived by her husband John, daughter Jessica, stepchildren Wendy and John, Jr. and step-grandchildren Reef, Riley, John Jr. and Jasmine.
Gilmour’s first publishing job was at E.P. Dutton. In 1964 she joined Bantam Books where she worked as copywriter, editor, and copy chief and as an associate director of marketing. She was married to Bruce Gilmour in 1968. She had a child, Jessica, with him in 1970. They were divorced in 1972. Her first novel "The Trade", a trashy paperback about the publishing business, was published in 1969.
She wrote novelizations (including Saturday Night Fever) and children's books (including Muppets books) while working full-time at Bantam and raising a child on her own. She published her second original novel "So Long, Daddy" in 1985. The artwork for the dust jacket of the hardcover release includes a photo of her daughter, Jessica. Her third novel was "Ask Me If I Care", a book about a teenage girl who gets in with the wrong crowd.
In 1992 she joined the book division at Scholastic, leaving in 1995 to pursue writing full-time. She focused her energy on books for "tweens" and children which is what gave her the most joy.
She met John Johann, whom she would later marry, in 1992. They later moved to Cornwallville in upstate New York where she happily tended to the garden she never had in the city until her death. She died on June 21, 2009 of pneumonia due to complications from lung cancer. She is survived by her husband John, daughter Jessica, stepchildren Wendy and John, Jr. and step-grandchildren Reef, Riley, John Jr. and Jasmine.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 4, 2021
كالاطعمة الايطالية ببساطتها و لذتها الفائقة احتوت حمي ليلة السبت اجيال وصل بعضها للستين الان او تعداها
سيظل معبرا عن اسلوب حياة ولي و انقضي مع علب الديسكو في السبعينات و تلك الطبقة الوسطي التي تقدس عطلة نهاية الأسبوع
لكن بقي منه فنان غريب ليس له شبيه
و كلمات اغنية *اكثر من امرأة *للبي جيز لن تميتها الايام لانها :السهل الممتنع
More than a woman
Oh, girl, I've known you very well
I've seen you growing every day
I never really looked before
But now you take my breath away
Suddenly you're in my life
Part of everything I do
You got me working day and night
Just trying to keep a hold on you
https://youtu.be/fy0rYUvn7To
سيظل معبرا عن اسلوب حياة ولي و انقضي مع علب الديسكو في السبعينات و تلك الطبقة الوسطي التي تقدس عطلة نهاية الأسبوع
لكن بقي منه فنان غريب ليس له شبيه
و كلمات اغنية *اكثر من امرأة *للبي جيز لن تميتها الايام لانها :السهل الممتنع
More than a woman
Oh, girl, I've known you very well
I've seen you growing every day
I never really looked before
But now you take my breath away
Suddenly you're in my life
Part of everything I do
You got me working day and night
Just trying to keep a hold on you
https://youtu.be/fy0rYUvn7To
January 7, 2024
Está interesante. Bastante parecido a la película, excepto quizá en ciertos detalles sin importancia. La historia se hace más humana si la lees, porque la película tiene más el encanto de la música que el trasfondo. De repente se vuelve lenta la lectura, pero ayuda mucho ir entendiendo todo con cuidado. Excelente adquisición.
September 16, 2023
I've heard the movie is good, and for that period of time it is a good book. I have a translated version, but I must say that the racism, sexual assault and nacionalism are unavoidable to look over when rating it and nothing makes it any better.
I only wish I'd watch the movie first so I could have a different opinion about it.
I only wish I'd watch the movie first so I could have a different opinion about it.
April 11, 2020
Saturday Night Fever.ST
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2022
Keep grooving keep moving all night
December 23, 2023
Hard to find but still worth looking if you can find a copy
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 22, 2012
Gilmour has a tough job ahead of her with this source material. After all, it’s not like she can write pages and pages describing John Travolta’s dance moves, or the womanly crooning of the Bee Gees. I guess she could, but it would likely be pretty awful to read, even worse to try and write. Instead, she focuses on the gritty youth drama aspects of Norman Wexler’s screenplay, amplifying the racism/sexism/homophobia of Tony Manero and his buddies, as well as the histrionics in the Bay Ridge house where Tony lives with his family. Gilmour also turns to Nik Cohn’s New York Magazine article, Tribal Rights Of The New Saturday Night (the basis for the film) for further inspiration. A scene where Tony terrorizes a Puerto Rican youth with the phrase “Hombre, you will die”, stolen from a Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western, is straight from the original article, as well as a flashback to Tony having his hand broken by his father as a young boy. Tony and his pals are referred to in the text as Faces, a turn of phrase also borrowed from Cohn’s article.
Some of Fever’s secondary characters are sketched in with a bit more detail in Gilmour’s book; Frank Manero’s unemployment, mentioned in the film a few times, looms larger in the book, particularly when she mysteriously appears to watch Tony work at the paint store one day. And, unlike in the movie, Frank does go back to work at the end of the novel, once again able to provide pork chops for the every-hungry Manero clan. Tony’s older brother, the ex-priest and family pariah Frank Jr., gets to do a bit more soul-searching in Gilmour’s book, better clarifying his reasons for leaving the priesthood by contrasting the boring day-to-day existence of a young priest with the morally questionable political stances the church often takes. Tony’s doomed oldest friend Bobby C. is far more fleshed out then the pathetic caricature seen in the film — events are often told from his point of view, as he feels the noose of loveless marriage and young fatherhood tightening around his neck. Gilmour further fills in Bobby’s character by making him an amateur artist, always restlessly sketching some knockout waitress in the nightclub or a particularly flashy couple on the dance floor. In one of the more effective new scenes, Frank Jr. compliments Bobby on his art, only to learn that Bobby never received any kind of encouragement from his parents, perhaps setting him on the road to failure at an early age; a nice connection is established between these two characters who have had their lives determined for them by their parents, one because his parents decided his fate for him at a young age, the other because his parents couldn’t have cared less.
Other additional scenes, possibly suggested by Wexler’s original screenplay, are less effective and sometimes pretty bizarre, like Tony’s run-in at the dance studio with a flamboyantly gay martial arts expert. It’s tough to tell if this was meant to be a nod to the then-current Kung Fu craze, or an example of how reality doesn’t match with Tony’s misconceptions of the world (assuming he’ll be able to easily trounce the guy, Tony is barely saved from a humiliating beating by the timely intervention of Pete, the horndog dance studio owner he insulted only moments earlier). Gilmour also pads out the page count a bit by indulging in some not-so-subtle metaphors, such as Tony’s near-constant appetite for food; in the film’s opening sequence, Tony, ever hungry for an ill-defined something, gets two slices of pizza on his way to the paint shop, but in the movie he goes back for three more slices a few hours later! He’s always stuffing his face with some kind of food or other in nearly every scene in the book. The counterman at the pizzeria, who acts as a sort of Greek chorus throughout Tony’s epic journey, observes to himself, “That kind of hunger a hundred pizzas don’t satisfy”.
The book doesn’t contain the usual eight-page photo section that a lot of novelizations from this period do, but it does feature a “Fantastic Full-Color Centerfold Of John Travolta” — a fold-out photo montage of Tony’s various dance moves, the same one contained within the original LP of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, if I’m not mistaken. Gilmour’s Saturday Night Fever may opt for grit over glitz, but it’s a noble effort that captures the essence of the film while retaining its own flavor…and really, isn’t that the best thing a movie novelization can aspire to?
http://flawintheiris.blogspot.pt/2011...
Some of Fever’s secondary characters are sketched in with a bit more detail in Gilmour’s book; Frank Manero’s unemployment, mentioned in the film a few times, looms larger in the book, particularly when she mysteriously appears to watch Tony work at the paint store one day. And, unlike in the movie, Frank does go back to work at the end of the novel, once again able to provide pork chops for the every-hungry Manero clan. Tony’s older brother, the ex-priest and family pariah Frank Jr., gets to do a bit more soul-searching in Gilmour’s book, better clarifying his reasons for leaving the priesthood by contrasting the boring day-to-day existence of a young priest with the morally questionable political stances the church often takes. Tony’s doomed oldest friend Bobby C. is far more fleshed out then the pathetic caricature seen in the film — events are often told from his point of view, as he feels the noose of loveless marriage and young fatherhood tightening around his neck. Gilmour further fills in Bobby’s character by making him an amateur artist, always restlessly sketching some knockout waitress in the nightclub or a particularly flashy couple on the dance floor. In one of the more effective new scenes, Frank Jr. compliments Bobby on his art, only to learn that Bobby never received any kind of encouragement from his parents, perhaps setting him on the road to failure at an early age; a nice connection is established between these two characters who have had their lives determined for them by their parents, one because his parents decided his fate for him at a young age, the other because his parents couldn’t have cared less.
Other additional scenes, possibly suggested by Wexler’s original screenplay, are less effective and sometimes pretty bizarre, like Tony’s run-in at the dance studio with a flamboyantly gay martial arts expert. It’s tough to tell if this was meant to be a nod to the then-current Kung Fu craze, or an example of how reality doesn’t match with Tony’s misconceptions of the world (assuming he’ll be able to easily trounce the guy, Tony is barely saved from a humiliating beating by the timely intervention of Pete, the horndog dance studio owner he insulted only moments earlier). Gilmour also pads out the page count a bit by indulging in some not-so-subtle metaphors, such as Tony’s near-constant appetite for food; in the film’s opening sequence, Tony, ever hungry for an ill-defined something, gets two slices of pizza on his way to the paint shop, but in the movie he goes back for three more slices a few hours later! He’s always stuffing his face with some kind of food or other in nearly every scene in the book. The counterman at the pizzeria, who acts as a sort of Greek chorus throughout Tony’s epic journey, observes to himself, “That kind of hunger a hundred pizzas don’t satisfy”.
The book doesn’t contain the usual eight-page photo section that a lot of novelizations from this period do, but it does feature a “Fantastic Full-Color Centerfold Of John Travolta” — a fold-out photo montage of Tony’s various dance moves, the same one contained within the original LP of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, if I’m not mistaken. Gilmour’s Saturday Night Fever may opt for grit over glitz, but it’s a noble effort that captures the essence of the film while retaining its own flavor…and really, isn’t that the best thing a movie novelization can aspire to?
http://flawintheiris.blogspot.pt/2011...
October 27, 2016
If you were a fan of the movie then you should grab this book.
February 15, 2024
The book is exactly like the movie. I loved it because it was written in the 70s when I grew up. It is a good story.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews